Tag Archives: developers

In this special episode of the App Fairy Podcast, we feature part of an interview done by Kabir Seth of the podcast Diversity Sauce about a year ago (back then, his podcast was called “Diversity in Apps”).  Diversity Sauce is a project of the Kids Media and Diversity Project, which is also supported by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, so I was thrilled to have this chance to promote their show on the App Fairy.  Since that interview happened awhile ago, I followed up with a few questions of my…

What if there was a better way to introduce math to young kids? For a parent, one of the first math concepts they teach their child is to count to 10. In this exercise, repetition is the name of the game: “Let’s count to 10!…Good! Now, let’s do it again!” While rote learning of the first 10 numbers is important, it is not sufficient for a child to grasp the deeper meaning behind these numbers, and why they are important to…

In the part two of a roundtable discussion on teaching with games, Sandhya Nankani talks to Paul Darvarsi and Aleksander Husoy about what teachers look for in learning games and explore some of the qualities that make the teaching games successful. See part 1 here. Teachers on games for learning   Sandhya: A recent study found that 91 percent of children in the United States ages 2-17 play video games! What an opportunity they present as a tool for learning, right? It makes sense, therefore, that…

I’m so excited to bring you this interview with Sago Mini!  I’ve been a huge fan of their work since the early days of kids apps and after a chance to visit their offices in Toronto in the fall of 2015, I became even more impressed with the level of dedication they put into creating high-quality apps for the very youngest users. I love how they create “digital toys” that focus on pure play rather than insisting that all of…

Everyone knows that books have authors and artwork is made by artists, but have you ever stopped to think about the people working behind the scenes to create some of the best children’s apps? Allow me to introduce you to some of today’s cutting edge media creators in my new podcast, App Fairy ! For the past several years, I’ve been using apps in my library programs and during that time, I’ve had many opportunities to e-mail questions to various app developers. I’ve discovered that, unlike…

The STEM Challenge team recently co-hosted a workshop at the The Tech Museum of Innovation with Cogswell College.  John Duhring, Director, Strategic Alliances and Alumni Relations, provides some insight into some career paths for students interested in exploring a future in game design and development.   There is an urgent call across U.S. universities to better prepare students for careers. Current research reveals that students decide to go to college primarily to improve their employment opportunities. They look to colleges to…

For 16-year-old Lexi Schneider of Dresher, Pennsylvania, the term STEM is missing something important—the letter “A”. An avid artist, her interest in video game design stems from her passion for creativity. Incorporating her love of both biology and graphic design, Lexi won the High School Game Design Document award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge for her original game, Body Builders. “For me it was more of a STEAM challenge,” she explains. “Creating my own game allowed me…

Sago Sago‘s apps are charming interactive experiences that aim to engage the youngest players. We recently had the opportunity to ask CEO Jason Krogh to share the story behind the company and to tell us more about their most recent game, “Friends,” which encourages young children to go on a digital play date.   Can you tell us a little bit about your path to developing apps for children? Like most people in the field, I stumbled into it. Shortly…

At LEGup (the London Educational Games meet up) we recently hosted an event on gamification and its potential to improve educational outcomes in the classroom. Gamification is something of a hot potato at LEGup – many of our members dismiss it out of hand as nothing more than the “pointsification” of educational products in a desperate attempt to make them more engaging. Increasingly though, others are taking a more nuanced view of gamification, looking at it as a method or…

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…