November FableFriday: Esther Tzau, Junior Developer

While most people tend to be right- or left-brained, Esther Tzau’s got it all. Her computer science degree and coding experience speak volumes about her left-brain logic and STEM mind, ensuring that she’s an excellent junior developer at FableVision. Meanwhile, her art portfolio consists of original designs, animations, and her own children’s book, continuously improving her right-brain creativity and storytelling.

“My interdisciplinary education pushed me to find connections and lean into those in-between spaces, and showed me how we can use technology to educate and tell stories in engaging and affirming ways,” says Esther.

When Esther works on FableVision tech projects, she brings more to the table than her coding abilities. She can look at the work through a critical and creative lens, leveraging the experience from her personal storytelling projects.

Read more to learn about Esther’s path to FableVision, unique projects outside of the studio, and the one game that she always wins.

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What’s your “journey to FableVision” story?
I first heard about FableVision in high school, when my graphic design teacher encouraged me to apply for FableVision’s internship program (thanks, Ms.Ciccolo!). When we learned that the internship was only open to college students, I put the application in my back pocket as I prepared for my first semester of college. Afterwards, this small but mighty studio mysteriously began to pop up in different conversations and circles over the next few years.

In 2018, I worked for an after school coding program for elementary school students and co-taught a class with former FableVision production artist and animator Taryn Johnson. She was the coolest—she had the best purple hair and was the best person to work with—and I was intrigued by her experiences as an artist at FableVision. Pursuing a career in animation and games? In Boston? I had no idea that my city was home to a thriving animation and gaming community.

FableVision spring 2020 interns

In 2019, after interviewing for the marketing internship, I asked Brian Grossman, FableVision’s technical director at the time, if I could shadow him and the developer team at FableVision. To my surprise, he said yes! I joined the spring 2020 intern cohort as a technical intern and developed Shared with 3 Others: a thoughtfully written, cleverly designed, and visually stunning game, alongside my talented fellow interns. As we developed this game and met other FableVisionaries, I confirmed that the role of “educational game and web developer” existed and that it was a possible path for me. 

The following summer, I was thrilled to work alongside the FableVision team as a freelancer. After graduating from Tufts University in 2020, Jordan Bach, FableVision’s current technical director, invited me to return full-time as a junior developer at the studio. It’s funny, now I’m the one telling people to intern at FableVision!

You majored in computer science and American studies! How did your educational background prepare you for this role?
I knew I wanted to study computer science after my summer with Girls Who Code, where I felt empowered to program creative educational experiences. For my final project, our team developed a prototype for a web app that helps immigrant kids practice reading English. The goal of that project was similar to the Spanish language updates I implemented for Project Here Games, my first full-time project with FableVision. Project Here promotes nonviolent communication skills and healthy decision making through social emotional learning. 

I encountered American studies during my first semester at Tufts, when I took a class on Asian America. American studies critically examines race, colonialism, and diaspora. It was a sort of therapy for me, as it gave me the language and space to process silenced histories and lived experiences within such a compassionate and active community. As I learned more about our broken education system, I became especially interested in different pedagogies and how learning can happen in and outside of the traditional classroom.

At Tufts, I also spent a lot of time in the Film and Media Studies Department (FMS), the School of Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), and our student magazine’s multimedia team (check out Tufts Observer). My projects in those spaces helped me merge computer science and American studies in unexpected ways. For example, I took a web programming class, experimented with the Unity game engine and Maya 3D modeling in my game design class, and applied what I learned to the Observer’s multimedia projects as we explored interactive journalism. 

Boston Asian American Film Festival volunteering (photo with Princess Punzalan from Yellow Rose)

How do you work with the other creative teams at the studio to ensure that your work resonates with the audience?
I work closely with producers, designers, and artists, and I’m inspired by how the studio prioritizes accessibility at every stage of the development process. Our UI/UX designers intentionally design accessible experiences for users with different abilities, artists create assets with guidelines (like color contrast) in mind, and producers inform me about what technical accessibility standards need to be implemented. Making sure that our games and interactives can be experienced by as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities, is very important to us.

I enjoy being at the end of the pipeline, pulling together the great ideas generated by clients and team members. Since I get to do final screenings and build the finished product, I’ve found opportunities to speak up if I notice that members of our audience have been overlooked unintentionally, or lost in the margins, and I bring any suggestions to the production team.

What’s a typical day like for a junior developer?
It’s common to work on multiple projects at a time, so I check the weekly schedule to see which project I’m on that day. Then I spend most of the day debugging code, developing online interactives based on design documents, and researching new tools. 

Throughout the week, I’ll check in with the producer(s) on a project, join a meeting with a client to gather feedback and share progress, and meet with fellow developers. During developer meetings and code reviews, the developers share challenges and helpful tools, bring questions, and discuss possible solutions. I’m truly blessed to learn and laugh with this development team. The developers are comedians and it always amazes me how their brains can store so much information.

You grew up in the Boston area! What do you like to do around here?
Eat, mostly. Whether I’m picnicking at Castle Island with friends, stuffing myself with a 10-course meal at a Chinese banquet with my church community, or hitting up all-you-can-eat restaurants with my family, you can probably find me eating somewhere with people I love. My favorite dessert spot is YoCha in Quincy!

We heard that you wrote and illustrated your own children’s book! Can you tell us more about that?
Coming soon to a library near you! At least, that’s the dream. This book is dedicated to my niece, my mom, and my Po Po (grandma in Cantonese).

Here’s a blurb: Mui Mui’s best friend and role model is her Po Po, but since she doesn’t have the language to ask, she knows nothing of her past. One day, during a visit with her grandmother, they bond, and she imagines all of the great things Po Po possibly could have done as a young woman. In a moment of magical realism, she learns the truth, and realizes how she inherited this gift of radical imagination from her Po Po. 

Stay tuned! I’ll let you know when it’s out.

Sneak peek of Esther’s book

What advice would you give to young people who are interested in pursuing a job as a developer? 
Computer science can feel isolating sometimes, so seek out community! It’s easy to get discouraged and frustrated, and experience imposter syndrome. Get comfortable with asking for help, whether from professors, teaching assistants, online forums, peers, or coworkers. Even if the person you ask is also stuck, it’s a lot more fun to problem solve (and/or commiserate) with another human being. 

Don’t let computer science turn you into a robot. Eat, sleep, rest, and take care of yourself. At school, it sometimes feels like everyone is pursuing a software development role at some Big Tech company, but if that’s not what you want, remember that programmers are needed in every field. Hold on tightly to your interests and don’t be afraid to make unconventional decisions.

Lastly, reach out to folks doing the kind of stuff that interests you. As you can tell from this FableFriday, people love to talk about themselves! You’ll learn so much from them and their connections. The worst that could happen is they say “no.” Once you get used to rejection, that's not so bad. :)

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Esther’s Favorites:

Favorite book: The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. I love graphic novels and memoirs, and this one is really special.

Favorite artists: Shout out to my talented friends: @tanjoreenie, @camoot.journal,@maxinearts, and @mariafongtastic. Check out their work on Instagram!

Favorite movie: Hmm, I can’t choose just one, so Coco, Get Out, and Ip Man 4. The iconic Ip Man navigates the cultural appropriation of martial arts and racial violence in his fourth movie. I’m a big fan of the anti-villain Chairman Wan, who is fiercely protective of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Some of the acting is so bad, but that only serves to let our Asian actors and actresses shine, so I’m here for it.

Favorite game: The game that’s been a staple in my family and in all of my communities—Bananagrams! Try to beat me, I dare you.

Favorite museum: MOCA—The Museum of Chinese in America in New York City. Next time you’re in New York, go support this important collection of artifacts and oral histories! I promise you will learn so much.

Favorite place to travel: Portugal had a huge impact on me. Beyond the tasty seafood, majestic ocean and mountain views, lovely hospitable tour guides, and fond memories with my family, this was the first trip when I was hyper-aware of what it means to be a tourist in someone else’s home. I wore a critical historical lens everywhere I went.

FableVision Presents "Civics! An American Musical"

Will the next hit Broadway musical come out of your classroom? Taking a page from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s composition notebook, players take on the role of a theatre producer to observe, reflect, and question primary sources taken from the Library of Congress’ archives and accurately adapt true events from American history to the Broadway stage. 

FableVision teamed up with Maryland Public Television, Maryland Humanities, and Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) to create Civics! An American Musical. A part of the Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Sources Program, this free online game is designed to teach middle school students how to analyze primary sources and have fun while doing it! 

In Civics! An American Musical, players work with the different theatrical departments to learn about a number of important aspects of creating a musical, such as costuming, set design, writing, and music. As the producer, players select the subject matter for their musical from four historical topics: the desegregation of public schools, the National Parks, the FDA, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. It’s then up to them to create a new smash Broadway musical hit that is historically accurate and celebrates the power of everyday citizens in creating change.

The more students successfully analyze primary sources, the more the game awards the players. The more points they collect and earn in each activity, the more costumes, set design, writing and music options become available. As the players travel through the levels and complete each mini-game, they unlock a scene from their musical on opening night that shows the collective result of the creative choices they made through their game experience. 

Our educator supports also include guidance for implementing the game into a variety of learning settings and a preview of the game topics, mini-games, learning outcomes, and standards alignment. A range of learning extensions will launch later this fall.

Civics! An American Musical is free and available now on FableVision Games. Click the button below to begin creating your own hit musical today!

July FableFriday: Julie Dobrow, Professor at Eliot- Pearson Children's School at Tufts University

Recently, we had the opportunity to speak with Julie Dobrow, Senior Lecturer in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and Tisch College Senior Fellow for Media and Civic Engagement at Tufts University. As an experienced scholar of child development and children’s media, Julie offers an experienced and unique perspective on creativity, imagination, and reconnecting with your inner child for those interested in entering the children’s media field.

“You need to be willing to keep learning, because the field and the platforms are always changing. I also think that the best producers of children’s media are the people who can connect with their inner child,” says Julie. “You need to remember what it FELT like to sit under that hedge and imagine that it was the portal to a whole different world. You need to close your eyes and SEE all kinds of fantastical things. You need to HEAR joyful music. And you need to DREAM in color, not black and white.”

As an attentive and supportive educator, Julie has even led many of her students to our studio for internships, and a few of them even staying as FableVision staff! A longtime FableVision friend, Julie talked with us about her history with children’s media, her latest projects, and her best advice for up-and-coming children’s media professionals.

You are part of the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, the oldest Child Studies program in the nation. What is your role there and what do you enjoy most about it?
Ever since I’ve been at Tufts—and I’ve been at Tufts a LONG time, since 1995!—I’ve taught at Eliot-Pearson. At first, it was just one class on children and mass media. Since then, however, I’ve added a graduate seminar on the topic and introduced a new course a couple of years ago on creating children’s media. I have always loved teaching, but teaching in this area of study, which changes every year (if not every week!) is both challenging and fun because it means I have to keep learning too.

What first made you realize you were interested in children’s media, and how did you get your start?
I actually wrote my Master’s thesis on images of gender and race in children’s animated television. Then, I didn’t do anything with the topic for a while. But when I became a mom, I started renewing my interest because I saw in my own little home laboratory just how much and in how many different ways media impacted kids’ lives. That led me to explore the area more in my teaching, research, and writing.

Can you tell us some more about the Children’s TV Project (CTV)? How did the idea for this project come about and what reflections do you have as you near the end of your research?
This project was actually born when the original Disney version of The Lion King first came out. My colleague, Chip Gidney, and I had each seen the film and were both kind of horrified by the ways in which the evil characters were marked by dialects. We looked at each other and said, “we should do something about this.” So we started designing a way to systematically explore the depictions of gender, race, and ethnicity in kids’ animated programming.

I’d have to say that after all of these years of working on this, I still feel like there’s more we need to understand. We’re pretty clear on the fact that stereotypes still exist and, in fact, exist way more than we would have thought they would given how hyper-PC so many people in the entertainment industry often appear to be. What we’re not as clear on is just why they do. And we’re just at the beginning of the last part of the project, arguably the most important part: doing research with children to understand how they think about and process the images that they take in.

Considering the observations that inspired CTV, what is something that writers, producers, and consumers of new children’s media should think about? 
One thing is that it’s not only how characters are drawn that matters; it’s also how they sound and the context they exist in. You can draw a very diverse set of characters, but just plopping them into some generic urban or suburban background isn’t enough to make a richly contextualized environment that mirrors the environments in which real people live.

Many of your students have worked or interned at places like WGBH, Sesame Workshop, and of course FableVision! What have you enjoyed the most about watching your students branch out into the world? 
I love matching my students up with internship sites, including FableVision. There are few things more rewarding than making a good match! Internships are an incredibly important way for students to see how they can parlay what they’re learning in the classroom into industry jobs. They make great contacts, and then they’re very willing to “give back.” So, by now, I feel like I have a whole little army of former students who are working at Sesame Workshop, Nick Jr., WGBH, Fablevision, Fox Kids, Google, Sprout, and a host of other places. They know how the combination of child development and media studies can really help get you started in this industry, and they’re always willing to help a fellow “Jumbo” with a conversation, a contact, and often, a job.

How did you first cross paths with FableVision? What makes it a place that you recommend to your students when they’re looking for internships?
It actually might have been one of my former students who tipped me off to some of the incredible work that’s going on at FableVision. I’ve had enough students who’ve interned and worked there by now to know that FableVision is a place where magic happens. I also know that it’s a warm, encouraging, and creative workplace. And how many internships or job sites actually have popcorn machines?!

We heard you’re currently on a book tour—congratulations! What is your book about and what do you hope readers will gain from it?
After Emily is a mother/daughter biography of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham, the two relatively unknown women who made Emily Dickinson into a household name. I hope that my book will introduce these two fascinating women who pushed the envelope on what women of their respective eras did to readers. I also hope that it will speak to everyone who themselves have had a complicated relationship with family members, and that it will shed some new light on the story of the ever-mysterious reclusive poet of Amherst.

We heard you recently ran into Marc Brown, author of the Arthur series, at one of your book events. How did it feel to officially meet the creator of such an iconic program? 
Well, Marc and I have been in touch for many years, since I helped Tufts to acquire some of Marc’s old Arthur materials when he was moving out of his home on the Vineyard. But we’d never met in person until he showed up at an event I did on my book tour in New York. It was wonderful to meet him, and I wish there had been more time!

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More about Julie:

Favorite flavor of ice cream? Coffee.

What’s a children’s book you still love to read? The Phantom of Walkaway Hill.

Best way to spend a Saturday? Puttering around in my gardens.

What’s your favorite city to visit? I’m not much of a city girl. I like visiting New York and Los Angeles, but I sure wouldn’t want to live there.

FableVision Studios, Maryland Public Television, Maryland Humanities, and CIRCLE Awarded Prestigious Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Grant

BOSTON, July 26, 2018 — FableVision Studios, in collaboration with Maryland Public Television (MPT), Maryland Humanities, and The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life, is proud to announce their award of a Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Grant from the Library of Congress. This $450,000, two-year grant will fund the development of Civics: An American Musical, an online and mobile civics game designed to effectively and creatively engage middle school students using primary sources from the Library of Congress. Inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s renowned musical Hamilton, Civics: An American Musical will consist of a web-based role playing game, hands-on classroom projects, and professional development materials for teachers.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with leading institutions like MPT, CIRCLE from Tufts University, Maryland Humanities, and the Library of Congress to showcase some of our nation’s most important primary sources,” says FableVision President and Co-Founder Gary Goldberger, who made the announcement. “Our strategy is to engage kids using a familiar concept, a cultural musical phenomenon that captures their imaginations – and create a scaffolded onramp to make history relevant to their everyday lives.”

The Teaching with Primary Sources program at the Library of Congress is a powerful way to help students ask engaged, probing questions, develop critical-thinking skills, construct knowledge and inspire original research. The educational outreach program for teachers provides professional-development opportunities that focus on enhancing their ability to embed digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress into inquiry-based instruction to build student literacy, critical thinking skills, and content knowledge.

“This approach encourages kids to research and analyze primary sources as they imagine, formulate, and debut their own ‘Great American Musical,’” adds Leigh Hallisey, creative director at FableVision. “Ultimately, we want to take advantage of the invaluable vault of historical artifacts in the Library of Congress to create something that still feels personally relevant to this demographic.”

Civics: An American Musical will launch in 2020 and be pre-populated with project themes, curated digital sources from the Library of Congress, and tools to organize and analyze artifacts like documents, photos, posters, and more. The game will be created as an open source platform to allow teachers to create their own stories and digital artifacts to customize the game for a wide range of subjects and students.

“Working on Civics: An American Musical will be a great opportunity to support both students and teachers in meaningful ways as they pair the inquiry process of learning with a creative sense of playfulness and curiosity,” shares Betsy Peisach, MPT vice president, education. “MPT is excited to continue its partnership with FableVision and expand our organization’s reach into the educational community through creative media.”

“FableVision Studios has a strong history of creating online learning experiences, and CIRCLE is eager to use our content expertise to bring civic learning that’s both engaging and based on deep content to students through Civics: An American Musical. Primary sources are invaluable educational resources, and we’re looking forward to creating an innovative tool that will expose students to deep civic learning and engagement,” says Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of CIRCLE.

Through the Library of Congress TPS program, hundreds of organizations from all 50 states and the District of Columbia have enhanced their programming for educators.

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About FableVision Studios:
FableVision Studios creates award-winning games, animated films, museum kiosks, websites, and apps. Our media, storytelling, and technology solutions allows us to collaborate with publishers, broadcasters, museums, research groups, foundations, and educational institutions. FableVision is dedicated to helping all learners reach their full potential and to telling "stories that matter, stories that move." www.fablevisionstudios.com

About Maryland Public Television:  
Maryland Public Television (MPT) is a nonprofit, state-licensed public television network and member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). MPT’s six transmitters cover Maryland plus portions of contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Beyond broadcast, MPT’s commitment to educators, child care providers, and learners of all ages is delivered through trainings and online at Thinkport, MPT’s education website. For more information, visit mpt.org.

About CIRCLE:
CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, focuses on young people in the United States, especially those who are marginalized or disadvantaged in political life. CIRCLE’s scholarly research informs policy and practice for healthier youth development and a better democracy. It is part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. www.civicyouth.org

About Maryland Humanities:
An educational nonprofit organization reaching more than one million people, Maryland Humanities creates and supports educational experiences in the humanities that inspire all Marylanders to embrace lifelong learning, exchange ideas openly, and enrich their communities. Nearly 40,000 students and 1,000 educators are served annually with free humanities programs and professional development opportunities. www.mdhumanities.org

About Library of Congress:
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States—and extensive materials from around the world—both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

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For more information please contact Sarah Ditkoff, Communications Director at FableVision Studios, at sarah@fablevision.com.