Top 4 Moments of 2024

As we close out 2024 and look forward to the new year, all of us at FableVision want to take a moment to reflect on and celebrate the remarkable year we’ve had. We’re extremely proud of the achievements, milestones, and fun times spent with friends and partners. Before we celebrate all the possibilities that come in the new year, here’s our top moments from 2024!

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A Very Shiny Year

FableVision’s Gary Goldberger and Liz Newbury of the Wilson Center accepting the award for The Plastic Pipeline at G4C!

2024 was extra sparkly as SEVEN of our collaborations garnered awards. From groundbreaking educational platforms to innovative sustainability projects, our work is recognized for it’s creativity, impact, and social good. Here are just some highlights

• Anthem Awards Silver in Education, Art & Culture - Education or Literacy Platform Product, Innovation, or Service for Nunaka: My Village (Chugachmiut) 

• Anthem Awards Bronze in Responsible Technology - Education or Literacy Platform Product, Innovation, or Service for Give As We Grow (GivingTuesday and Phillips Foundation)

• Anthem Awards Bronze in Responsible Technology - Film, Video, Television or Show for Heroes of Zero (Power of Zero)

• International Serious Play Award, Gold for GASHA GO! World (Georgia Public Broadcasting and GaDOE)

• GEE! Award Winner (Informal Learning): GASHA GO! World (Georgia Public Broadcasting and GaDOE)

• Stevie Awards, Bronze, K-12: MathBee (Stride/K12)

• G4C Awards, Best in Environmental Impact Winner for The Plastic Pipeline (The Wilson Center)

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Red Carpet Rolled Out

We hosted a few star-studded studio events in 2024! 

Creative Juices

In July, we kicked off the summer fun with our annual Creative Juices art show open house at the studio! The event featured original works of art created by staff and studio friends, a live band, and lots of laughs. 

Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Reception

This past fall the NCSS Conference was just down the street from us, what better opportunity to host a FableVision Studios reception?! We had lots of new faces in the studio and some old friends too. 

TLC Studios Opening

The Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning, and Creativity recently debuted their latest offering: their brand new brick-and-mortar location, TLC Studios & Media Lab: Innovation & Creativity Center. To kick off its grand opening, partners, educators, and friends were invited to explore the space for themselves! 

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In Good Company

We have the best clients in the world. Our partners work with us to find creative solutions for complex challenges. Here are just a few of our big collaborations from the year.

Our collaboration with IGDILab on a new PreK storybook assessment brought us to the Gates Foundation! The platform captures key developmental domains in ways that prioritize equitable outcomes and moves away from harmful historical assessment traditions.

Nickelodeon and audiyo-yo’s launch of the Dora’s Aventuras podcast features rockin’ music, sound-based minigames, and exciting stories that inspire and entertain. Every day is an Aventura when you’re with Dora!

The Heroes of Zero continues to garner much-deserved recognition in various award competitions this year. The animated series, created with the Power of Zero, teaches 5-8-year-olds the skills needed for an increasingly online world. 

Stride/K12’s Learning Hub holds two collaborations with FableVision. The ELA Village world acts as a virtual lobby to their existing minigames and MathBee gameplay engages learners to solidify their math skills.

The National Gallery of Art’s Paint ‘n’ Play interactive, developed by FableVision, invites visitors to learn about the art around them by digitally creating their own.

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smart Cookies

Who us? You betcha! Our team traveled near and far to share our knowledge, best practices, and stories from behind the production curtain.

FableVision’s Anne Richards, Sarah Ditkoff, Kellian Adams Pletcher, and Steph Hoechst representing the studio on this year’s conference circuit!

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And looking ahead to 2025…

We’re hitting the road in the new year! We’ll be sharing insights, meeting new people, and growing our community. We can’t wait for what comes next! 

We’re headed to FETC this January! Check out Sarah Ditkoff, VP of Strategic Partnership’s panel, “How To Integrate Game-Based Learning into Curriculum Design.” She’ll be joined by Stride, Inc’s Chief Learning Officer Niyoka Mccoy, and i2e Edu’s Senior Manager of Customer Engagement Nathan Wells. 

• President Gary Goldberger, VP of Development Rachel Reade Marcus, VP of moonladder Tone Thyne, and VP of audiyo-yo Anne Richards will be attending the Kidscreen Summit in February!

• FableVisionaries are setting off to Austin for SXSW EDU in March.

• Director of G.L.A.M. Innovation Kellian Adams Pletcher’s forthcoming book on building games in museums, published by Rowan and Littlefield, is set to release in 2025! Pulling from Kellian's work with museums and interactive exhibit production, the book provides a guideline for creating digital, analog, or digital/physical games tailored to museum settings. If you just can’t wait, check out Kellian’s article in the fall 2024 publication of AAM: A Museum Community Starts with Friends: Building Open-Source Prototypes for Audience Engagement with Project AMI.

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Let's Rewind: FableVision's Top Moments of 2022

Another year, another reflection! As we eagerly await the clock striking 12 and greeting 2023 with open minds and hearts, we want to review 2022’s highlights that were made possible by our incredible and dedicated staff, partners, and friends. 

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New Year, New Logo

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, FableVision unveiled its new, dynamic logo. Our fresh look pays tribute to the whimsy of our original logo, designed by FableVision founder and New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds, with a contemporary and playful personality. 

Since one image couldn’t encompass all of FableVision, our spiral O is interchangeable with icon doodles including chicks, planets, aliens, and more. 

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Did You Hear About Our New Audio Division, audiyo-yo? 

With a desire to keep growing, FableVision launched audiyo-yo, our new podcast division dedicated to creating entertaining, engaging, and educational audio content for children and families. 

“Even though audio is a classic form of storytelling going all the way back to radio plays, there’s so much exciting new work happening in this space right now,” said audiyo-yo VP Anne Richards. “There’s a lot of room for innovation and emerging voices to make an impact.”

audiyo-yo celebrated the launch of its first two projects – first, the interactive, voice-activated Pinna Original Yes No Audio Escape series, where listeners co-create the story by answering “yes” or “no” to questions; second, Pinna Original Roasting Vegetables, a short-form audio series full of silly vegetable puns, original beets, and nutritious, delicious characters.

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Exciting Industry Recognition

We are honored to work with amazing partners to represent unique and educational projects. Check out the recognition we’ve received and how we reached a broader audience.

Reception on our roofdeck the night before MuseumExpo

• To help spread the word about audiyo-yo, Kidscreen featured articles about our audio division, how audiyo-yo tackles the future of kids’ podcasts, and audiyo-yo’s podcasts to keep on your radar. 

• Children can now listen to the Pinna Original Yes No Audio Escape series on Pinna’s app and to the Pinna Original podcast Roasting Vegetables in Pinna’s Surprise Box. Kidscreen also took a deeper look into the development of the interactive escape series in its online and print magazine.

NoiseFilter’s Doc Griggs stopped by to record in our studio

• Tone Thyne, FableVision’s VP of Creative, served as showrunner for Spin Master’s Sago Mini Friends, a new animated series for preschoolers on Apple TV+ based on the characters from the Sago Mini Friends app. In the adorable nod to gratitude, four friends play, explore, imagine, and celebrate daily in their joyful town of Sagoville.

• Guru Studio partnered with award-winning TIME Studios to develop FableVision’s new animated series Scoops, created by Tone Thyne. The lighthearted comedy tackles neighborhood news stories featured on best friends Ellerby and Olsen’s home-grown news show.

• FOX8 in New Orleans ran stories about two NoiseFilter animations – clinical trials with Irma Thomas and pediatric vaccines – while interviewing Doc Griggs.

• Animal Antics, created with Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Civics! An American Musical, created in partnership with Maryland Public Television, Maryland Humanities, and Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), were included in the 2022 American Library Association’s Notable Children’s Digital Media list.

Meeting with Georgia Public Broadcasting about GASHA GO!

• Echo Explorers, a born-accessible Cyberchase game created with The WNET Group, THIRTEEN, and Bridge Multimedia, was nominated for Kidscreen 2022 Best Learning App — Branded award in the Kids Digital category.

• Peter H. Reynolds’ book Be You!, published by Scholastic, reached the Top 10 List for The New York Times Children’s Best Sellers — Picture Books.

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Thought Leadership

Sharing our experience and insights while meeting experts in the field helps us strengthen our services and grow our community. Here’s where we presented this year.

Kellian (as Ms. Drizzle) at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

• Sarah Ditkoff, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, presented Civics! An American Musical at the Middle States Council for Social Studies (MSCSS) Annual Conference, the National Council for History Education (NCHE) Conference, and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).

Paul and Peter H. Reynolds at FlipFest

• Director of G.L.A.M (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Innovation Kellian Adams Pletcher took center stage at MuseumNext’s Museums, Games, & Play Summit to discuss how to learn from past failures in game production and what makes games succeed or fail. She also spoke about trends for museums and play for the Children’s Museum Research Center, China, created and implemented a team-building game at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and taught introduction to game design at Emerson College. 

• Ideas Last, a podcast hosted by Danielle Gillespie, featured FableVision President and Co-Founder Gary Goldberger to discuss the launch of FableVision, how to approach learning in a new way, and his advice for entrepreneurs. 

Peter Stidwill at YOU Belong in STEM

• Peter H. Reynolds and FableVision CEO Paul Reynolds presented about International Dot Day at Flip’s FlipFest at ISTELive22, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Boch Center’s Wang Theatre.

• Anne Richards spoke at the 2022 Games for Change Festival on how podcasts can meet the needs of children, parents, and educators, both now and in the future.

• At the Connected Learning Summit (CLS), Sarah Ditkoff and Gary Goldberger discussed the power of partnerships between academia, for-profits, and nonprofits.

• Executive Producer Peter Stidwill presented on supporting STEM education through small business innovation research at the YOU Belong in STEM National Coordinating Conference hosted by the U.S. Department of Education.

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To Wrap It Up…

It’s not all serious work for us. As we settled into our new space on the bustling and historic Newbury Street, we hosted a reception the night before the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo and a game design discussion with leaders from IDEO and Innova in Peru. Our staff and friends participated in our ninth annual Extra Life to raise funds for the Boston Children’s Hospital. 

Thank you to our wonderful partners and staff – old and new – who help us create incredible projects. Whether you’re stopping by for a meeting, recording in our sound booth, or attending an event, we hope to see you at our studio soon. We can’t wait to see what we accomplish in 2023!

FableVision Studios’ Top Moments of 2021

It was the second year of the pandemic but in many ways 2021 brought us hope. Producing “stories that matter, stories that move” has never been more important. 

We’re so lucky to have our incredible staff, friends, partners, and clients who collaborated with us on amazing educational animation, videos, games, and interactive projects. We can’t wait to continue working with you (spoiler alert!) from our new space! As we look forward to FableVision’s new chapter in 2022, here’s a look back at our top moments from 2021.

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1. Award Winners
We are honored to represent unique, creative, and educational projects. Thank you for your recognition!

• 2022 Kidscreen Award finalist for Echo Explorers (WNET, Bridge Multimedia)

• 2021 4-star review from Common Sense Media for Civics! An American Musical (Library of Congress, Maryland Public Television, Maryland Humanities, Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE))

• 2021 Serious Play Award, K-12 Education, STEM-Elementary Category, Silver for Cyberchase Fractions Quest, created with WNET and Education Development Center

• 2021 Serious Play Award, K-12 Education, STEM-Elementary Category, Bronze for Echo Explorers

• 2021 Cynopsis Award, Best Online/Video Game for Kids for Echo Explorers

• 2021 The EdTech Awards, Cool Tool Finalist for Cyberchase Fractions Quest

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2. Amazing Partners
We’re happy to work with current and new clients for immersive and educational collaborations. Here are just a few partnerships that we wanted to thank.

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3. Thought Leadership
We love sharing our insights and learning from other experts at conferences. Here’s where we presented this year.

• Leigh Hallisey at the National Council for History Education (NCHE) and Sarah Ditkoff at ED Games Expo explained how primary sources can be used in the classroom in Civics! An American Musical.

• Shelby Marshall at The Learning Ideas Conference shared how to use online simulations to explore complex topics and apply systems thinking.

• Loren Lee-Flynn at Serious Play Conference and Connected Learning Summit explained accessibility and game-based learning as she shared how we created Echo Explorers.

• Kellian Adams Pletcher at Futur21 talked about limits and opportunities of game design in cultural spaces.

• Peter H. Reynolds at Microsoft Education’s E2 Education Exchange discussed how to bring innovation to the classroom.

• FableVision sponsored BostonFIG Talks and Learns, an annual game-creators conference with expert talks and hands-on learning. 

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4. Newsworthy Collaborations
Here’s how more people had the chance to learn about our projects.

• The Paper Girls Show, created with Global Tinker, is now available to watch on Sensical, the streaming app from Common Sense Media.

• FOX8 in New Orleans featured a story about the NoiseFilter vaccine animations, while interviewing Doc Griggs. 

• Peabody Essex Museum featured the story of Mahabharata and FableVision’s larger-than-life animation for the gallery.

• Harvard Graduate School of Education launched three early learning apps created by FableVision as part of Reach Every Reader to help children develop pre-literacy skills at home.

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5. Seasonal Banners
We welcome each season with beautiful banners created by our artists. We hope you love them just as much as we do! Doesn’t our winter one help us end 2021 on an especially cozy note?

Spring banner designed by FableVision Production Designer Julie Oliveira

Summer banner designed by FableVision Production Designer Julie Oliveira

Fall banner designed by FableVision Lead Artist Christina Kelly

Winter banner designed by FableVision Production Designer Julie Oliveira

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6. New Studio on Newbury Street!
As 2021 was FableVision’s 25th anniversary, we’re celebrating with the studio’s new location in one of Boston’s most iconic districts—Newbury Street! The original wood floors, vintage skylight, and spacious roof deck with beautiful Boston views will inspire us and give us that extra boost to continue creating wonderful projects together. We look forward to working with you and inviting you to our new home.

Thank you for following us in 2021. We can’t wait to make 2022 even better!

Reach Every Reader: FableVision and Harvard Collaborate on Early Learning Literacy Apps

It’s never too early for children to start developing their literacy skills! Turn everyday routines into learning opportunities with Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)’s Reach Every Reader, a foundation literacy initiative comprising resources, assessment, intervention, and support to help all children become successful readers and learners. FableVision developed two apps—Photo Play and Animal Antics—to transform car rides, trips to the grocery store, and more into moments of engaging conversation. 

Created in partnership with the HGSE, Reach Every Reader is an initiative that aims to support high-level, equitable literacy achievement by creating opportunities for conversation between parents, caregivers, and children. Five years in the making, the project seeks to bridge the literacy gap by improving learning opportunities and word acquisition in low-income families. 

Photo Play gives young children and caregivers the opportunity to decorate and interact with their own photos using fun stickers, emojis, and “talk” balloons. The app uses conversation prompts to encourage free-flowing conversation, both while using the app and offline. By allowing players to personalize photos of themselves, children are more engaged in the activities and more open to discussions of the location of the picture, memories of the day the photos were taken, and hopes for future trips and activities.

In Animal Antics, imaginations run wild as children and caregivers play make-believe and create stories and dialogue for animals cast in 20 different scenarios. The app incorporates play-acting and conversation exercises, allowing children and caregivers to take on the role of animal characters and move through scenarios of their choosing. As players move through each scenario, they take turns recording their voices and choosing the emotion of their animal, shaping and building the story as they go.

Thorough research was conducted to create apps that not only fulfilled specific learning goals, but also kept children engaged and excited. Playtesting was conducted with a diverse group of families who reported learning easily implementable, effective new strategies as a result of the initiative. Research emphasizing the quality and diversity of words was also incorporated into the development of each app, as was research on the importance of intergenerational play in children’s early language development. 

FableVision is proud to join forces with Reach Every Reader to launch this project supporting early literacy development through early assessment, detection, and intervention for children across a range of socioeconomic status. The initiative furthers our mission to move the world to a better place through positive media that helps bridge learning gaps for children of different backgrounds and abilities.

Photo Play, Animal Antics, and a GBH-created app Small Wonders are available now on iOS, Google, and Android. Click here to play now!