Not trying to cause a big sensation...

Hello! Thank you for reading my blog. This semester, I plan to use the internet to track and journal about my academic readings, research, and the creative process of developing a children's television series. TV is dead, you say? I beg to differ. Although television isn't being watched in the traditional sense, series are being watched on demand, on the internet, and on telephones.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking of a clever name for the blog. In the midst of a mini-road trip this weekend, I thought a great deal about Mac's branding. The iBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. It seems as if we are putting this "i" in front of everything representative of technological advances. That's when I started thinking about "iGeneration" as a phrase for the current generation of young children who know more about social networking than I do. With the lyrics to "My Generation" stuck in my head, I immediately turned on my computer and googled the word in hopes that it was unsearchable. Much to my dismay, someone had already thought of this as an alternative to Generation Z (What the heck does the Z stand for, anyway?). Wikipedia has this to say about the iGeneration:

On the average they are highly connected, many having had lifelong use of communications and media technologies such as the World Wide Web, instant messaging,text messaging, MP3 players, cellular phones and YouTube,[10][11] earning them the nickname "digital natives".[3] No longer limited to the home computer, the internet is now increasingly carried in their pockets on mobile internet devices such as mobile phones.

I am excited to begin my exploration of children's television content development and look forward to reading your comments, answering your questions, and pondering your ideas. I'd like to conclude my first post with a music video that I have been thinking a lot about recently. Some of my heroes include Fred Rogers, Joan Gantz Cooney, and Jim Henson. They were all visionaries who were unafraid of making change in children's media. Their ideas and creativity have had a profound influence on my work as an artist, teacher, and academic. I think regardless of our chosen path, the media we participate in as young people has an impact on our adult experience. Please check out this XYZ Affair video for their song "All My Friends." Can you ID all of the special guest stars?