Category Archives: Industry

The Games for Change Festival starts bright and early tomorrow morning in New York City, where game designers, investors, journalists, and researchers will gather for a four-day investigation of the current state of serious gaming. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center will be there, hoping to engage with a community who we believe possesses a cultural connection to the young learners of today. Earlier this month, another game-focused meeting of minds took place in New York, albeit in a more intimate setting and…

This post originally appeared on gamesandlearning.org.   Toca Boca has emerged as one of the most significant kids producer in the mobile app space. The Swedish-based company has about two dozen apps that have been downloaded 65 million times — and those are paid downloads. The company has found a sweet spot building consumer-facing apps for children that can be sold across the world. Despite their prowess in the App Store, the company is not eyeing the American school market.…

Last month, here at TribePlay, we celebrated the two-year anniversary of Dr. Panda games. Since its initial release, the Dr. Panda series has expanded to over 14 educational games for kids. Dr. Panda games are uncommon in the sense that they do not focus on math and languages, but on life skills: skills that help kids recognize and deal with situations in everyday life. In the two years we’ve been making kids’ apps, we have become strong believers in the…

The poets of the early eighteenth century saw it as clearly as we do: “slugs, snails and puppy dog tails” delight all kids equally. But on International Womens’ Day 300 years later, despite all our advancements, “sugar and spice and everything nice” persists as our overwhelming message to girls—and the cumulative effect is anything but advanced. From toddlerhood, girls are inundated by messages that “princesses” are either not cut out for math and science or not welcome in it. A…

When twelve-year-old Amy O’Toole spoke at TED last fall, she took the stage as one of the youngest people ever to have published a peer-reviewed science article. Amy’s inspiring article, which she wrote with her classmates as part of a playful participatory science program, is perhaps the only peer-reviewed science article to begin “Once Upon a Time”; it is both good science and a good story. As Amy’s article and TED talk show, play helps students learn science, and storytelling…

In recent years, augmented reality (AR) toys have gained increasing prominence at the International Toy Fair held in New York. Many of the industry’s biggest players have launched AR lines: Mattel’s Apptivity products build upon the strength of existing brands such as Batman and Hot Wheels; Hasbro’s Lazer Tag works with a compatible app to insert digital targets into the user’s environment; and the toys in Disney’s DreamPlay line, launching in the U.S. this fall, will enable kids to play…

This post was originally published on 360kid’s blog and appears here with permission. For more than a decade I’ve been going to the annual NY Toy Fair, and I go primarily for one reason. To check out the latest technology toys. I’ve seen some amazing toys over the years, as well as hundreds, maybe thousands of other toys that just didn’t make the cut. This year a few new tech toy products caught my eye, and I’d like to share…

At Launchpad Toys, we’re working to inspire creativity in children through play with digital toys and tools like our flagship storytelling app, Toontastic. As tablet usage in young children increases year after year (NPD showed 13% growth between 2011 and 2012), it has become more important than ever to provide kids with quality learning tools that maximize their time on touchscreen devices. Still, in the immortal words of former President George W. Bush, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our…

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, some of the best-selling video games included familiar titles such as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and Oregon Trail—products that not only set the standard for video games as educational tools and but also launched an entire industry of consumer products intended to both educate and entertain. Through the success of these titles and numerous others, the “edutainment” industry blossomed and many visionary leaders and reputable companies were innovating in this…

Cynthia Chong is an educational media researcher whose research focuses on how the design of educational media can affect young children’s learning and the way they interact with them, as well as how parents and teachers use these technologies to teach. She recently began reviewing educational apps for 3- to 8-year-olds on her blog, A Matter of App. We’ve invited Cynthia to tell us a little bit more about this blog and why it’s important for parents, educators, and designers…