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Last week was rough for those of us in the Boston area. Despite all the craziness, we managed to have a bright spot in our week – this year’s Sandbox Summit at MIT. We’re always energized by gatherings of fellow kids’ media professionals, and this year’s summit was no exception. With folks in attendance from all over the country, it was a great forum to discuss the current and future landscape of children’s media.

This year’s summit was titled “Pixel the Possibilities: Nurturing Kids’ Imagination in the Digital Age”. We were welcomed by Scott Osterweil of MIT’s Education Arcade, and then treated to a series of diverse presentations that related to creativity in the digital age. Among the highlights for us was a conversation with Harvard professor Howard Gardner, who spoke about his concepts of five minds for the future, and his concerns that the disciplined mind will be threatened by an increasingly digital world.

In addition to thought provoking conversations and presentations like Howard’s, we were inspired by our time in break-out sessions. We attended workshops on timeboxing (which resulted in the brainstorm session pictured above), IP creation and marketing, and digital creativity tools. We took a lot away from each of these, and have already been putting new brainstorming practices to work at CloudKid HQ. All in all, the Sandbox Summit and the CMA Boston Kickoff event that followed were great opportunities for us to grow as content creators and connect with others who love what they do as much as we do.

Spinning off of the “digital” theme of the summit, here are some great online resources for those who were unable to attend the event in person. Enjoy!

• A great overview of the summit’s highlights from iArt4Kidz
• Another great synopsis from the Pittsburgh Kids & Creativity Network
• Sandbox Summit’s Twitter handle with takeaways from lots of attendees
• Event videos courtesy of Scott Traylor at 360 Kid