- I uploaded a YouTube video — Children's Educational Software Panel of Legends http://youtu.be/M9AIYKq_EdY?a #
Here’s the complete press released emailed to me today from Jackie Lustig, hired to do PR for OLPC. You can make your own conclusions. Can OLPC fix it’s sorted reputation for making hard to use, clunky hardware that doesn’t compare well to commercial mobile devices? Stay tuned.
One Laptop per Child and Marvell Join Forces to Redefine Tablet Computing for Students Around the World
Marvell and OLPC Empower Education Industry to Revolutionize the Classroom Experience through Advanced, Affordably-Priced Tablets
Cambridge, Mass. and Santa Clara, Calif., May 27, 2010 – One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a global organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education, and Marvell, a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, have agreed to jointly develop a family of next-generation OLPC XO tablet computers based on the Marvell® Moby reference design. This new partnership will provide designs and technologies to enable a range of new educational tablets, delivered by OLPC and other education industry leaders, aimed at schools in both the U.S. and developing markets. Marvell is also announcing today it has launched Mobylize, a campaign aimed at improving technology adoption in America’s classrooms.
- I uploaded a YouTube video — Children's Educational Software Panel of Legends http://youtu.be/M9AIYKq_EdY?a #
I uploaded a YouTube video — Children’s Educational Software Panel of Legends http://youtu.be/M9AIYKq_EdY?a
ROCHESTER – Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Square, brings top scholars on the subject of play in America to Rochester for “Strong Perspectives,” a free lecture series.
The series, opening Tuesday, will explore the changing roles of children and play throughout American history.
The schedule:
- Monday, June 7, 7:30 p.m. “What Would Montessori Say About the iPad? When Old Theories of Play Meet New Media”: Since Edison’s talking doll, inventors have been eager to apply the latest innovations to children’s play; and these times are no different. In this historical and theoretical examination of the state of digital play, Warren Buckleitner explores the promise and perils of new technology in the play room—from inventor’s get-rich-quick schemes to significant and lasting cultural influences. Buckleitner is a nationally recognized expert on children and technology. He is founding editor of Children’s Technology Review and founder of the Dust or Magic Institute on the Design of Children’s Interactive Media. He also covers children’s technology for the popular New York Times Gadgetwise blog.
Lectures are free, but advanced registration is requested. To reserve a space, call 585-263-2700 or send e-mail to info@museumofplay.org.
The Strong Perspectives series is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
- I uploaded a YouTube video — How I Made an iPhone App, by Daren Carstens http://youtu.be/slUYeRz4Hc0?a #
- Landed at JFK after around the world trip for Asian Fest of Childrens Content. Glad to be home. Headed to port authority. Thanks #afcc #
I uploaded a YouTube video — How I Made an iPhone App, by Daren Carstens http://youtu.be/slUYeRz4Hc0?a
First Annual 2010 Kids @ Play Interactive (KAPi) Nominees and Winners Announced
We are pleased to announce the winners of the first annual KAPi Awards, given at Kids @ Play event on January 7 at CES.
The KAPi prize is an honest attempt to ask as many people as possible “which children’s tech products raised the bar for innovation and excellence last year?” For more about the award and award process, visit the KAPi FAQs.
Thanks so much to all who attended AppCamp at Asilomar (in Monterey, California). It was an amazing event, and we proved that we could pull it off.
The first annual AppCamp
Let’s just say that some hardware company was making a multi-touch tablet for the school market. By the way, the ePad is a fictional name — I think Intel has used it at some point or another. Although it is clearly iPad inspired, and Apple has a huge head start, there’s no reason HTC couldn’t make such a device using Android.
So… what features would ePad have? I started thinking about this for an article for Ednet and came up with the following:
- Two cameras and voice recognition. On the back, a high-resolution camera with OCR in back well suited for scanning or converting any document into a PDF. On the front, a lower resolution camera for video chats, so a student in the back row can beam a comment to the big screen. Read the rest of this entry »
- Landed at JFK after around the world trip for Asian Fest of Childrens Content. Glad to be home. Headed to port authority. Thanks #afcc #
Landed at JFK after around the world trip for Asian Fest of Childrens Content. Glad to be home. Headed to port authority. Thanks #afcc
Toy Story comes to your iPad with this 23 page/screen adaptation that mixes highlights of the second movie (Toy Story 2) with two games, two songs, three coloring activities and the ability to record your own narration. Features include the ability to have the story read automatically, or to let the child flip through the book, one screen at a time (the pages curl, like paper). A pair of mouse ears at the screen bottom lead to a tray of options that include a microphone for recording your own narration, the coloring activities, and scrolling set of pages, that makes it easy to jump directly to any page. This includes two games: Parachute Drop (tilt the screen to steer a soldier through a maze of obstacles) and Toy Barn Maze (swipe to move Buzz through a maze, collecting toys). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Turn your iPhone screen into a paint-splattered mess with this simple program. The app was first released in 2008 and has been updated several times; but it is basically the same. While there is no iPad version, it still works and looks fine on either sized screen. The program starts with a blank, white square turntable surrounded with splatters of paint. You can either swipe or tap to start it in motion, in either direction. A double tap makes it stop or increase in speed. If you hold your finger down, you can make a perfect circle, or you can choose the large paintbrush to make a big mess, quickly. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Part of the grant-funded International Children’s Digital Library out of the University of Maryland, the StoryKit app (for iPod Touch or iPhone) combines a simple drawing program with text-entry features. In addition, you can import photos from your device’s photo library and add copy below them, to create your own stories, which can then be saved and emailed, providing your device is setup for email. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Previously available as a download for Mac and Windows, this game is now available for the iPhone or iPad. Similar in design to the computer version, the game has you battling legions of zombies that are invading your yard, trying to reach your front door. To defeat them, you purchase and plant a variety of mutant flowers, vines, trees, and other foliage that have zombie combating powers (for example, cherry bombs and peashooters). These zombie battling plants can slow down, confuse, weaken and eventually destroy the vegetation zombies, before they get to your door. Your selection of plants, along with their placement, is the key to winning. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
How many times can you touch a target in 60 seconds? That’s the challenge of this fast-paced matching game for one to four players, that runs on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. First you are shown something to pick, such as a colorful tomato or a potato. Next you see your item, mixed in with two other choices. The goal is to touch it as quickly as possible. Wrong answers result in a buzz — correct answers bring up a slightly larger, harder set of items, one of which is yours. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
In the story, you’re stranded on a mysterious island when you come upon a book titled Myst, and you have no idea how old it is or where it came from. You read through the book and are provided with a description of an island world. As you search the island by choosing directions, multiple-choice style, you will solve mysteries and puzzles which will “challenge your skills of perception and thought”. The game features six worlds, called ages, including Stoneship and Channelwood. Borrow it if you’re a game historian. Otherwise, pass. Originally created by Cyan. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Kung Fu Panda World (KFPW) is a richly animated Flash-10 based online destination for children aged 8-up that is free to register and play, or available as a subscription for $6/month sans commercials. In many ways, the site resembles a “design your own avatar, explore a movie-themed world” type of experience.
After you register, you can design your own avatar and start exploring the first levels of the game. A sponsored play game model lets you play for free, as long as you watch a commercial for a “kid friendly” sponsor like McDonalds. If you subscribe, you can skip the commercial and reach the highest levels of the game. There is no in-game commercial content. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Baby Einstein content comes to your mobile device for the first time in this mixture of short video, and do-it-yourself fact screens in which you can record your own voice and follow links to online purchases. The videos consist of six three minute video segments taken from existing content (Baby Neptune and Baby Beethoven). Each follows the tried-and-true formula of mixing classical music with close ups of interesting objects. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The classic storybook, about a spider in search of friendship, comes to the iPad. When a page is turned, you see a preview of where the hotspots are on the page. You can also touch images for surprises, paint pictures, solve jigsaw puzzles and play games. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Teachers take note: WordTotz is a customizable flashcard app designed to help children learn their first words using familiar pictures and sounds.The app lets you create your own cards, using photos from your photo album. You can then record your own voice over the photos; potentially very valuable as a language experience. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Like a recipe book for exercise, this reference for iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad consists of a database of 150 exercises. You start by touching a region of the body (e.g,. back, legs or shoulder) and then see a list of exercises, presented in step-by-step fashion. For each exercise, you can download a short 10 second video showing what to do. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This finger painting experience for iPod Touch and iPhone, with a new version for the iPad, has a clean visual design, a manageable 10 color palette and resizable stickers. You start by choosing from three themes (ocean, school or farm). Next, you see a well designed creativity space, offering colors, a single, one size paint brush, an eraser and a row of stickers. There are also icons for saving your picture to your photo library, or alternating between 12 backgrounds per theme, including a blank white or black canvas. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Poke the spider to change scenes in this adaptation of the classic nursery rhyme. You can make rain come down from the clouds, splash in the puddles, help a caterpillar become a butterfly or play peek-a-boo with a frog. Your child can also count from one to ten as a squirrel builds his house, find hidden eggs on a scavenger hunt, create your own music using eggs that play different notes, stack hats on the spider’s head, listen to classical music with violin and cello pizzicato, and record their own singing. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Turn your iPad into a beautifully illustrated story book, with this 37 page (screen) iPad version of How To Train Your Dragon (called merely “Dragon Book” in the App Store). If your child liked the movie, he or she will also like this storybook. That’s because the illustrations are taken directly from the movie, pixel per pixel. Children can swipe their way through the book, one page at a time, front or back, listening to the text read aloud. The book follows the movie, highlighting each key moment, and the narration sounds like it came from the movie as well. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Set in a swamp at night, this app features frogs in secondary colors of orange, green and purple. These frogs are hungry for a firefly snack, but they will only eat flies that match their color. You must mix the red, blue and yellow flies by touching one of the flies, and combining it with another, to mix the colors. This creates a new color. If the color matches the frog, the fly is eaten and you get the points. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Turn your Nintendo DSi into an ebook, with this series of six titles, found in Nintendo’s DSiWare store for 500 points (roughly $5). To buy the book, you must locate the store from your DSi or DSi XL (wireless Internet connection required) and select one of the titles. After you download the title from the DSi Store, you turn the DSi sideways, to open like a book. You can flip the pages by swiping across a page, or by using the arrow keys. Other features include the ability to unlock an additional bonus story, and the ability to beam a book to a nearby DSi owner, for sharing. The print version of the book was published by Egmont. The FLIPs title was created by EA’s Bright Light Studio. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Children explore with their fingertips, in this colorful underwater playground, where a school of quick swimming fish illustrate numerals (up to 20), the alphabet song, and a set of shapes. In the alphabet song, children can swipe forward or backward, hearing the alphabet backwards if they like. If they stop at a letter, such as U, they hear “U is for Umbrella.” The number line works the same way, only the quantity is presented along with the numeral, in the form of a line of small eggs on the bottom of the screen. The “Playtime” activity fills the screen with dozens of differently colored fish, of every shape, size and pattern. Other more structured activities include a game of concentration, and a discrimination game, that asks children to find the fish that doesn’t belong. The iPhone and iPod touch versions are available for $.99 at http://tinyurl.com/fishiphone; the iPad vesion is $1.99: http://tinyurl.com/fishipad. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Available in both free and full versions for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Drawing Den is a coloring program that offers eight pictures that you can color, and there are no stamps or undo options. Other features include the ability to quickly share a photo and a “stay within the lines” option that you can toggle off, in case you want to make a mess. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This touch screen coloring book looks good at first, but has some primitive features you should know about before spending the $5 for your young Dora fan. Children first choose one of five backgrounds, and can then rotate between three sets of tools: Crayons (seven colors, plus a magic “rainbow” crayon which paints the screen automatically); Stickers (about 60, featuring mostly Dora-themed items); and Backgrounds (representing each season). When each crayon is touched, you hear the word in Spanish. Other features include three levels of zoom, either on the background, or on a specific sticker, which is nice for getting into the crevices. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
It used to be when you wanted to sketch out the plans for an invention, you grabbed a napkin. The iPad equivalent is Doodle Buddy, a multi-touch sketching utility. Content includes 24 backgrounds, including white, black and several for word games like dots and tic-tac-toe; four drawing tools and an infinite color selector. There are also 80 tiny stamps, and the ability to import a photo from your photo library. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Based on the Webosaurs.com virtual world, this app features 3D versions of the Webosaurs’ characters including Stretch, Pterry, Horns and Rexxy. Players can race their Webosaurs through various environments by moving their iPhone face up and down to maneuver through obstacles and jump over ramps. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
ColorPlay for the iPad is a ten page coloring book featuring farm animals and looping banjo music. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This open-ended drawing program gives you the best of both worlds — free one finger scribbling on a blank screen, or coloring on one of 50 traditional-looking coloring book pages. There is a color palette with 20 common colors,12 stickers and eight pen sizes. You can also toggle on/off voice instructions, and it is easy to save work, continue works in progress which are presented in the startup menu, or import pictures from your photo library. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is an electronic flannel board app. Content in version 1.0 for the iPad includes three themed sticker sets (Africa, Military Aircraft, and Underwater), each with a set of approximately 20 stickers. There are two types of sounds: Sticker Sounds and looping Ambient Sounds. Other options make it possible to share a picture via email (if your device is setup), and one touch saving to your photo album. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This app feaures one slate background, five colors, one line size and two erasers. A disk icon makes it easy to save your picture to your photos application. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
If there were such a thing as a “coffee-table book” for the iPad, it would be this one. It’s the kind of book you pick up once in a while to admire the aesthetics, but then forget about it, for possibly a very long time. Featuring 50 beautiful color prints (or pages) with creative fonts, Alice for iPad (short for “Alice in Wonderland” on the iPad) is a beautifully crafted, abridged version of the story of Alice in Wonderland, with the words take directly from the Lewis Carroll book. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The content of this iPod Touch app includes one flash card per letter, which are presented randomly. For each letter, you see three animals. The idea is that you see a letter (for example ‘F’) and then touch the associated animal. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
If you’ve ever done a paint-by-number puzzle, you get the idea of “123 Color HD Talking Coloring Book for iPad” (the long name). This is the third update of this title, the first for iPad. You start by choosing from three sets of 17 black-line coloring sheets, one for numerals, upper case letters and lower case letters. There’s also a free coloring option. Each part of the picture is labeled, and a key is shown on the bottom of the screen. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.