About
Our History
Since 1980, EDC's Center for Children and Technology (CCT), a nonprofit research and development organization, has explored the roles that new technologies can play in young people's lives. Based in New York City, CCT has a staff of forty comprised of former teachers, technology and curriculum designers, producers and programmers, developmental psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists.
The Center originated as the educational research and development division of Bank Street College. In 1993, CCT became a division of Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), a national nonprofit organization committed to quality education for all learners and headquartered in Newton, Mass. The Center for Children and Technology serves as EDC's primary New York office and has current annual revenues of approximately $4 million.
One of the first education technology research and development organizations, CCT recognized early on that electronic technology would change people's understanding of the world in crucial and complex but unpredictable ways, and foresaw the need for formal research to ensure that technology would be used productively in schools, homes and other environments. From the beginning, CCT studies focused on cognitive and social aspects of learning with technology, due in part to the influence of the practitioners and developmental psychologists on staff.
In the years since its inception, CCT has created, shaped, investigated and informed new initiatives and approaches to foster learning and improve teaching through the development and thoughtful use of educational technologies. CCT believes firmly that for research to be genuinely valuable, it must yield information that can improve program and practice. Because of this commitment, CCT has a strong track record of partnering with many different kinds of organizations, including schools and districts, private and corporate philanthropy, government and policy groups, and cultural institutions including museums and libraries, on educational technology initiatives.