The Interactive Media For Children Program has aimed principally to gain in-depth knowledge about the impact of interactive media on children's learning and development, and has worked to promote the use of that knowledge in the creation of beneficial children's interactive media products.

Interactive Media and Child Development

• To create a research agenda addressing the potential for interactive technology to meet children's cognitive, social, emotional and physical needs, Markle developed a project led by Dr. Ellen Wartella, University of Texas at Austin, which produced a report entitled Growing up with Interactive Media: What We Know and What We Don't Know about the Impact of New Media on Children. In addition, a Compendium of current research and directions for the future aimed at increasing access to research on children and interactive media to help academics, producers, parents, and the press to address crucial issues in children's use of interactive technologies, including social development, learning, safety, and consumer awareness.

Building Smarter Products: Unifying Research and Product Development

• Based upon the proposition that interactive media products beneficial to a child's development could also succeed in the marketplace, Markle hosted three Markle Media Forums at which key players gathered to examine interactive media products notable for their incorporation of current child development research into their design. Three in particular were considered: Leap Pad, SimCity and Blues Clues.
• To encourage both the non-profit and for-profit sectors to play critical, constructive roles in the development of new interactive TV media for children, the foundation provided funding to Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and The Discovery Channel so that each could create a programming strategy that that was both economically viable and incorporated current research on children and the public interest. PBS's report ---"One Voice, Many Screens" -proposed an agenda for the public service media's management of its digital children's television service. In March 2003, The Discovery Channel reported on the implementation of its planning and development processes; the report ultimately reshaped the plan for viewers under ages 5, and marked the beginnings of a new interactive prototype for viewers aged 6-12.

In September 2002, believing that the children's media environment had changed significantly, the Foundation began a period of careful reexamination of program goals and objectives in the Interactive Media for Children program area. The firm Just Kid Inc. provided an extensive environmental scan of the children's interactive learning field. The report concluded that, although there have been a few exceptions; it is in general extremely difficult for innovative research-based children's interactive media projects to gain a foothold in the current media environment. Based on these findings, the Foundation decided to discontinue making investments in the Interactive Media for Children program area.