Nathan and Haeny are back for another Pop Off about recent cuts to funding for federal research. And they brought in a special guest: Vice Dean for Digital Innovation at Teachers College, Managing Director of the Digital Features Institute, and Pop and Play producer, Lalitha Vasudevan. What is being cut, what are the impacts and implications, and what can people who are concerned about these cuts do? Where was that research money going and why does it matter? Tune in to find out and get ideas ab...
Jun 10, 2025•22 min
Haeny and Nathan aren’t just here to talk about children’s media - in this season finale, they’re here to MAKE children’s media! Welcome to a fictional tale of what happens after the end of the world, drawing on prompts and suggestions from this season’s guests and narrated by guest star Hannah Holbert. It’s an episode unlike any previous Pop and Play: we hope you enjoy it! And if you share it with any kids, let us know what they think! Send us a message at @popandplaypod on Instagram! For trans...
May 06, 2025•26 min•Season 5Ep. 9
What kinds of shows and media are kids into these days? Haeny and Nathan go straight to the source to find out: kids, of course! Their guests this week are three pairs of kids aged six, eleven, and sixteen. They share their viewing habits and opinions, talk about who they watch with, and Haeny and Nathan learn that “kids media” and “adult media” aren’t always such separate things after all. For transcripts of this episode, to learn about our guests, and more, visit our website . Follow now on Ap...
Apr 29, 2025•31 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Haeny and Nathan welcome to the show Andy Davenport, one of the creators of the hit children’s show Teletubbies. Find out about the origins of the show, the inspiration behind the teletubbies themselves, and Davenport’s background in children’s language development that all contribute to the show we know and love. This deep dive into the world of Teletubbies with its rolling hills and baby sun will get deep into why play is so vital to children’s experience of media. Correction: We know spongebo...
Apr 22, 2025•41 min•Season 5Ep. 7
In this episode, Haeny and Nathan talk with two of the creators of the award-winning kids and family podcast Story Pirates ! Co-founder and Creative Director Lee Overtree and Co-founder and CEO Jamie Salka join to talk about how to treat children as true collaborators, both in podcasting, as well as the many other forms of media Story Pirates is creating including books, music and television. We’re warning you in advance: they talk a lot about Northwestern University - but they tie it all in to ...
Apr 15, 2025•42 min•Season 5Ep. 6
This season is all about exploring children’s media, and this week Haeny and Nathan talk with Emily Reardon, Emmy Award-winning and patents-holding designer specializing in the development of emergent technologies for play and learning, and Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. Emily and Michael talk to us about their favorite TV shows growing up — remember Electric Company? — and the ways media and education are intertwined, particularly at the current moment. They...
Apr 08, 2025•37 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Haeny and Nathan welcome Aaron Trammell, Associate Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. He has recently published two books on play: Repairing Play, A Black Phenomenology , and The Privilege of Play . Both of these books — and this conversation — explore the challenging elements of play, and ask questions about how various communities understand play and access to different types of play. And of course they have fun talking about which classic games are right for which scenarios and going deep...
Apr 01, 2025•46 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Join Haeny and Nathan in talking to Erica Halverson, professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, host of the podcast Arts Educators Save the World , and author of How the Arts Can Save Education , and co-founder of the Playmakers Lab in Chicago. Listen to Erica create musicals on the fly, explain Whoopensocker, a community she developed, and talk about the value of making art for its own sake. This episode gets into approaches to making art with children and m...
Mar 25, 2025•46 min•Season 5Ep. 3
In this episode, Haeny and Nathan go bonkers about fandom with Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California, and Ioana Literat, Associate Professor and co-director of the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design Program at Teachers College. They start off this episode talking about their own fan communities (you know Haeny is a T-Swift fan, right?), and the way information is shared within thes...
Mar 18, 2025•43 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Join Haeny and Nathan in talking to the makers of EcoLeaders , a TV series that’s part of BronxNet Television and available on Youtube that uses puppetry to explore collective responses to environmental issues. Jesus, Paola, and Logan are the family team behind the show, and ask questions like: How can children’s media also be activism? Through their stories of real-world issues impacting kids’ lived environments, the team behind EcoLeaders helps Haeny and Nathan think about the role of children...
Mar 11, 2025•41 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Season 5 of Pop and Play is releasing next Tuesday, March 11! Since this upcoming season is focusing on children’s media, we’re releasing some past episodes where we’ve talked about children’s media! This week’s episode is from Season 2, originally released May 10, 2022! Haeny and Nathan talked with amazing scholar (and mentor to Haeny) Professor Anne Haas Dyson about Masters of the Universe: Revelations! (But really they mostly talked about how the media kids watch plays different important rol...
Mar 04, 2025•40 min
This week, Nathan and Haeny sit down with Dr. Jacqueline Simmons and Dr. Sarah Gerth van den Berg of the Black Paint Curriculum Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University to talk about their new podcast, Curriculum Encounters ! They have an expansive, some might even say playful , approach to curriculum design. They ask us to think about the curriculum of all kinds of spaces and activities, beyond formalized plans for school lessons. Curriculum Encounters is coming out February 27, 2025! Subsc...
Feb 25, 2025•30 min
This March 11th, another season of Pop and Play is about to roll into your podcast feeds! This season, Haeny and Nathan are exploring children’s media. By talking with game designers, performers, artists, and kids, we’ll examine what it takes to make children’s media and how kids relate to it. And of course they play games and find out “what’s poppin.” For transcripts of this episode, to learn about our guests, and more, visit our website . Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Be...
Feb 17, 2025•2 min
As researchers of kids’ play and pop culture, Haeny and Nathan have a few frequently asked questions they get from adults. These include, how much screen time is okay (if any)? How do I design or assess play in my curriculum? Is this game okay for my kid? Search no further! They’re here to bring you the answers you crave. Or will they do that annoying professor thing and wind up just turning them into more questions? Listen to find out! Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your ...
Feb 11, 2025•20 min
We’re back with a new annual tradition(?)! It’s our New Year’s bonus episode - and it’s still January so the year is still new! Nathan and Haeny talk about some of their favorite pop culture topics from 2024, things they want to say goodbye to from last year, and hopes for play and pop culture in 2025. Disclaimer: Haeny and Nathan are not expert sources on the slang the kids are using. Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your insight and opinions, and we want to hear your ideas...
Jan 28, 2025•18 min
Gun Violence research and hope might not usually sound like they go together, but this week’s special Pop Off guest, Teachers College Professor Sonali Rajan, is here to share progress made in this often challenging field. Sonali Rajan is Professor of Health Promotion and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health. Organizations Sonali mentioned in this episode: Research Societ...
Jan 07, 2025•19 min
This week, Nathan and Haeny are talking about “parents’ rights.” Having rights sounds great, but what do people mean when they talk about “parents’ rights”? How is that phrase used in service of the agenda of certain adults, and how does it position those adults in relationship to the rights of kids and other parents? Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your insight and opinions, and we want to hear your ideas for Pop Off topics and future guests! For transcripts of this episod...
Dec 17, 2024•19 min
Sometimes we hear “it’s not the time for that” when it comes to play or diving into pop culture in difficult times. When times are hard, we might feel guilty about doing things that seem frivolous. But Haeny and Nathan are here to push back on the idea that there’s something wrong with playing—or when we don’t perform the “right” kind of “serious” response—when we deal with challenges, loss and grief. Check out the zine Haeny mentions in the episode here . Please take our listener survey ! We co...
Nov 26, 2024•14 min
This week, we’re going all the way back to season one with “Future Dreaming”. In this episode Haeny talks about speculative fiction and creative reimagining with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Olu Animashaun, and Lalitha Vasudevan. We’re bringing you this re-release (originally released April 27, 2021) in case you missed this great conversation the first time. We’re going to bring a few older episodes back into the feed as we keep working on Season 5 and get ready to talk about children’s media (and ot...
Nov 19, 2024•45 min
It’s Halloween! Haeny and Nathan are here to frighten and delight you with some Halloween opinions in a just-for-fun holiday “Pop Off”! Do you have takes on costumes, candy, and scary movies? Follow @popandplay pod and send your thoughts! As a bonus, you’ll get to see the costumes Haeny and Nathan wore for this episode! Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your insight and opinions, and we want to hear your ideas for Pop Off topics and future guests! For transcripts of this epis...
Oct 31, 2024•16 min
Pop Offs are short bonus episodes of Pop and Play where we bring you short, more timely shows between main seasons of Pop and Play. This week: everyone wants to talk about AI, in education just like everywhere else! Is AI the solution to everything? Is it the downfall of everything? Or maybe, just maybe, could it be something in between? Nathan pops off about the way some AI tools are currently being used for teaching, and suggests alternative ways we could think about AI in classrooms and other...
Oct 24, 2024•14 min
Pop Offs are short bonus episodes of Pop and Play where we bring you short, more timely shows between main seasons of Pop and Play. This week: it seems like there are checklists for everything! A checklist can be a useful tool, but do we need them for children’s play? Can you guess what Haeny thinks? And since Haeny and Nathan have committed to offering alternatives in addition to complaints, what could parents do instead to reflect on their child’s play? Please take our listener survey ! We cou...
Oct 16, 2024•13 min
This week Haeny and Nathan get schooled. Specifically they visit the first grade classroom of first-grade teacher and education scholar Carmen Llerena and talk to some kids! They learn how to play pirates, all about Rainbow Friends, and how to navigate conflict through pretend play. They talk about how kids use available materials to play in unexpected ways, the role of adults when it comes to shaping spaces where kids play, and learn about how easily imaginary worlds emerge from a pile of block...
Jun 11, 2024•43 min•Season 4Ep. 9
There’s no denying it (looking at you, Haeny), on this week’s episode we’re diving into “role playing.” It’s right in the acronym “Live Action Role Playing” or LARPing, the topic of this week’s episode. Haeny and Nathan are joined by Judson Packard, Program Director of the Wayfinder Experience camp in the Hudson Valley that runs LARPing programs for kids. They talk about their experiences as a camper at Wayfinder and now as a staff member, and what LARPing offers people that can make it a specia...
Jun 04, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 8
This week Haeny and Nathan talk with Amy Parks, and Maika and Maritza Moulite. They are all navigating the world of academia and busy being young adult fiction authors. They talk about why they’re drawn to writing for middle school aged readers, what it’s like to be a YA author in academia, and where they get inspiration. Also, Haeny makes everyone share their most embarrassing memories. Just kidding. Sort of. Haeny Yoon! (You’ll get it when you listen.) For transcripts of this episode and more,...
May 28, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Have you ever been curious about dressing up in character? This week, Haeny and Nathan talk with Alexis and Josh about cosplay! They talk about why they dress up as characters they enjoy in community with others and how to put together costumes (having Josh sew them for you helps). They also talk about why dressing in character can feel risky, including dealing with the risk of harassment. And Nathan and Haeny talk about their own experiences with costumes and debate how to say “cosplay.” For tr...
May 21, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 6
This week Haeny and Nathan are back at the table - the tabletop gaming table that is, with Kent Davis, author of the A Riddle in Ruby fantasy series and co-author of Epic RPG , a tabletop role playing game. He talks with Haeny and Nathan about how risk comes into gaming. What makes playing roles feel risky, and how can players be encouraged to take risks in a gaming environment, without pushing too hard? And of course, Haeny pitches Kent on her Kardashian themed role playing game. For transcript...
May 14, 2024•35 min•Season 4Ep. 5
This episode takes the theme of “playing roles” this season literally! Marah and Chris join Haeny and Nathan on the Pop and Play stage to talk about acting! They are a married couple that acts in community theater productions in San Francisco. They talk about how they got into acting, what has kept them coming back to it, and how it feels to be on stage as a lead character and a person of color in front of younger generations. Also Nathan and Haeny put them on the spot for an unrehearsed acting ...
May 07, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Nathan and Haeny are joined by Lil Miss Hot Mess (LMHM) to talk about playing with roles through drag, Drag Queen Story Hour, and what it’s like doing drag events for kids. LMHM talks with Haeny and Nathan about her journey in drag, and how drag can be part of modeling possibilities for adulthood with kids. They tackle questions like, how can we defend drag from its critics and uplift its possibilities without sanitizing discussions of drag as an art form? And LMHM demonstrate her skills in coin...
Apr 30, 2024•42 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Haeny and Nathan are joined by immersive experience designer Caro Murphy to discuss the power of immersive experiences, what kinds of choices go into designing them, and what parallels they have to learning environments and teaching. Caro is one of the designers behind the Star Wars: Galactic Experience the team visited in last week’s episode ! Listen to that too, it pairs great with this episode in either order! Caro shares some tips and reflections from their immersive experience design work, ...
Apr 16, 2024•49 min•Season 4Ep. 2
