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Picture Puzzles is the next app in the 'Play and Learn with Wallace' Series

Picture Puzzles is the latest app in the 'Play and Learn with Wallace' early learning series of apps. It joins existing apps, Counting Fun, My First App and First Spelling.

It features six different puzzle games that help develop a child's creative skills, test their visual sense and build spatial awareness. 

The games in Picture Puzzles are:

  • Follow the Lines: Ten different mini-games where a child must navigate a series of dots to complete the game
  • Noisy Zoo: Match the picture to the animal sound (eight different variations)
  • Puzzle Pieces: Touch the puzzle piece that completes the puzzle (four different puzzles)
  • Shadow Shapes: Find the shadowed object that matches the picture (15 different variations)
  • Spot the Dot: Identify the falling dot that matches the requested color (eight different variations)
  • Matching Twins: Find the matching twins hidden behind the cards (20 different variations)

Like all games in Play and Learn with Wallace, Picture Puzzles integrates with our Personalized Profile and Rewards Chart system, so kids can feel great about their progress.

Also, the content in the apps loads in randomly so kids don't get bored.

When you purchase two or more apps, the apps can be Super Shuffled together, giving kids the benefit of a blended learning experience. Learning professionals will tell you that blended learning is one of the best ways for kids to learn rapidly and retain more deeply.

As always, the full-featured trial is FREE.

To find our more about the system, watch the above video, read my original post on the topic, or better yet, download the software on your iPad.

To celebrate the launch, Picture Puzzles is 99 cents for a limited time only (it's usually $3.99).

Picture Puzzles Screen Shots

Follow-the-Lines
Noisy-Zoo
Puzzle-Fun
Shadow-Shapes
Spot-the-Dot Matching-Twins

February 11, 2013 in Education, Games, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Introducing Play and Learn with Wallace



This short video is a superb encapsulation of what I have been working on for the past year with the good folks at Macmillan Children's Publishing, and their much beloved imprint, Priddy Books.

If you don't know them by name, Priddy is the maker of over 500 books, including First Words, ranked by Scholastic as one of the 100 Greatest Books for Kids. They have sold over 100M titles over the past decade so they really understand the early learning segment.

Working around a model known as co-creation, we called upon our own learnings from building dozens of ebooks, apps and games at Unicorn Labs, combined those learnings with the ethos and IP of Priddy, and a built that into a series of early learning apps.

These apps are delightfully fun for kids, to be sure, but in the process of play, kids develop cognitive, creative, spelling, math and drawing skills.

What's unique about the approach is that while each app can be used separately, the apps can also be "super-shuffled," or mixed together dynamically, to provide what is known as blended learning, a proven methodology that helps children learn more rapidly and more deeply.

I will write more about the system that underlies 'Play and Learn,' but in the interim, I would encourage you to watch the video, and download the app, which is free.

New titles in the series will be rolling out monthly. In fact, here's a teaser about our next title, Picture Puzzles, which launches at the end of the month.

Picture-Puzzles-is-coming

Related:

  1. Rebooting the Book (One iPad at a Time)
  2. Kirkus Reviews gives Spot the Dot a Kirkus Star as a Book of Remarkable Merit

January 15, 2013 in Design, Digital Media, Education, Games, iOS, Mobile, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

The Apple Education Event: Can you say Halo Effect?

Apple-Ed-Event

Only Apple could take on the educational textbook business, an industry seemingly frozen in the 1950’s, where three gorillas dominate 90% of the market, and credibly expect to win.

Then again, only Apple has the moxie and constitution to re-think the entire textbook value chain from device to development tool; from online marketplace to bricks-and-mortar, and into the classroom.

That Apple today simultaneously launched a new interactive book authoring tool, an updated online bookstore and a new platform for creating, instigating and managing online courses is…let’s face it…so very Apple-like.

This is what they do. Build great tools that only run on the Mac, that tie into a software platform that seamlessly integrates into their three flavors of ‘iDevices’ (i.e., iPod touch, iPhone and iPad), and that feeds into an iTunes + iCloud universe, which is the axis point for Music, Movies, TV shows, Books, Apps and Personal Media, not to mention 250M credit card-backed iTunes accounts.

I mean, this is the definition of a ‘Halo Effect,’ right? Every thing that the company does reinforces everything that the company does, and every new initiative builds upon this advantage, in the process creating new advantages in terms of brand, market penetration and, most importantly, mindshare.

It’s almost Microsoft-like (back in the days when the PC ruled the roost); namely, that there is an air of inevitability, that through the Apple approach, which is all about focus, rigor, integration, leverage, derivation and optimization, that when Apple decides to attack, they are destined to win. (To be clear, though, Apple winning does not mean that everyone else must lose.)

In fact, one great irony is how until recently, the conventional wisdom was that Apple couldn’t win with this type of vertically focused approach, and that Google’s aping of the Microsoft horizontal model was destined to prevail.

Why Apple’s Approach to Textbooks is Credible

In pointing their attention at the textbook, Apple does so with several tremendous advantages. One is the simple fact that education is a core part of the company’s DNA, Apple having built their initial education beachhead in the mid-1980s with the Apple IIGS in K-12, and later on, with the Mac in higher education.

In fact, beyond Apple’s strong Mac presence in education, there are now more than 1.5 million iPads used in schools, over 20,00 education and learning apps built for the iPad, and over 1000 universities using Apple’s free online lectures archive, iTunes U.

Two is the basic truth that the ethos of a lightweight device whose battery lasts all day, that is durable, richly interactive, loaded up with compelling content, highly customizable, and equally critical, which is coveted by the ultimate end-user of the device (the iPad was the number one coveted device by teens over the holidays), is iPad all the way.

After all, it’s not like there is some other device that is even remotely in the ballpark in terms of units sold, developer adoption or customer embrace.

Three is the fact that in targeting the textbook arena, Apple was cognizant of the ‘core jobs’ that they’d need to address to be successful; namely:

  1. Making it easy to create the textbooks themselves;
  2. Extending the concept of a textbook to be visually elegant and meaningfully interactive;
  3. Nailing the information management side by making textbooks readily searchable, and cross-linkable between the table of contents, the text body and the glossary terms;
  4. Enhancing the study side of the equation by making notation and highlighting very easy, and conversion of same into study cards in a single click.

So, in the big picture, how do I read what Apple is doing? Number one, they are changing the rules of the game for a company like Amazon, which has a credible hope of competing in this space, given the success of Kindle.

Thus, by providing an enhanced ebook experience, and the tools to create it (something I suggested that Apple would do back in 2009), Apple is laying down the gauntlet.

If Amazon wants to compete, they either need to up their game by building tools and forking more heavily away from Android, or they need to focus on being the best low-end and/or single-purpose solution.

They simply are not going to succeed going toe-to-toe with Apple in segments where being best-of-breed and scalable matters.

As to Google, given the fact that the Android Market still has a confused relationship with customer billing, that the platform still does not support in-app purchasing, and the company’s seeming inability to launch a credible alternative to iTunes, the Android-based tablet business remains best suited for folks who want to surf the web while on the potty.

Moreover, in turning iTunes U into a courseware platform, Apple is basically taking the end-to-end problem of online course logistics, and solving it by enabling instructors to create full-fledged courses that incorporate a syllabus, document assignments, and which build a new type of courseware ‘bundle’ that is a composite of iBooks, Apps, Audio, Videos, Documents and iTunes U lectures.

Plus, because it’s deeply integrated with the new iBooks, a professor can reference a specific page in an assignment, and by clicking on the reference, the app will take the user to the specific content section, be it a reading passage, a video, an interactive element, or even a custom note within a reading passage.

Finally, because the courseware ‘envelope’ is bounded by a new iTunes U app, teachers can post messages and update assignments, and students can mark the assignment as completed when done.

Personally, there’s more than a little irony that the same company the rebooted the music business by unbundling the single from the CD package is now looking to reboot the education business by bundling apps and media into courseware. 

Related Notes:

  • The fact that iTunes U, which was previously limited to college courses, is now going to support K-12, is a big win for underfunded school districts, not to mention, homeschoolers, a rapidly growing segment.
  • iTunes U could see major uptake outside of the US since the service will be available in 123 countries. Given that iTunes U will drive ownership of both iPads and the underlying content and apps that make up a course, this initiative could end up catalyzing a lot of international growth for Apple in the months ahead.
  • The new iBooks model further muddies the already fuzzy boundaries between iBooks and Book Apps. Book Apps are clearly more dynamic and functionally rich than iBooks, but they are also more expensive to produce, and equally vexing, whereas Apple has pushed to maintain higher price points on iBooks, with Book Apps, they have allowed the category to be subject to the same downward pricing pressures as ordinary apps.
  • By taking a leadership role in education, and coming off as deeply earnest about this being a core part of the company’s mission, Apple gets to counter attacks that they are a walled garden and a bully with the fact that in market after market, they are the hero of the consumer. I expect them to see continued brand uplift from this.
  • On the downside, serious questions have been raised by others about the EULA in iBooks Author, inasmuch as Apple is trying to handcuff the author’s ability to do what they want with the output of the tool, and potentially raising questions of who owns the 'output' that is generated by the tool, but crafted by the author. Needless to say, this is an aspect of Apple that, business logic notwithstanding, makes more than a few queasy.
  • It seems clear that many of these books will be 1 GB in size or larger, suggesting that the iPad of the not too distant future is going to need a lot more storage for education-oriented users.
  • What, no social? It’s hardly surprising that Apple opted not to incorporate social functions into the new iBooks, given their two left-feet in this domain, but it’s also a missed opportunity to enhance collaboration and shared learning efforts.

UPDATE: Fred Wilson is the best (i.e., I love the richness of his perspective, and how business and product strategies manifest in the real world), but it's hard to imagine him celebrating ANYTHING that Apple does, which makes his complete dismissal of Apple's efforts here unsurprising (see 'Textbook Cases').

Related:

  1. Holy Shit! Apple's Halo Effect
  2. Apple's Segmentation Strategy, and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom
  3. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time
  4. Amazon's Prime Challenger to the iPad
  5. It’s Time to ‘Think Different’ - Conventional Wisdom is Dead (Apple’s Q1 Earnings Call)

January 20, 2012 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Books, Branding, Digital Media, Education, iOS, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

On Lineages of Thought, Short-Termism and the Dying School of Apprenticeship

Trungpa-Lineage

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote a short post this morning on the role of lineages of thought.

I wanted to expand on this concept a bit, as lineage is a central concept in Buddhism as well, where a lineage, such as the Kagyu Lineage, is passed from one generation to the next. 

It is through this methodology that someone like the Dalai Lama can be "discovered" as a reincarnate, indoctrinated in the teachings of the lineage (over many years), and then emerge as a Master.

If you think about it, there is an interesting duality in the nature vs. nurture aspect of a lineage. On the one hand, a conscious effort is made to discover the flesh and bones individual that has the right DNA to be a great leader.

On the other, a deep, prolonged apprenticeship of training and practice is ensures that those raw capacities are forged in a predictable fashion into something "miraculous."

Sadly, our own societal embrace of the tyranny of short-termism has led to the demise of focused apprenticeship as a core part our how we convert our unpolished young adults into skilled craftsmen.

(FWIW, in terms of philosophical learning, I am a 15+ year devotee of Chögyam Trungpa, who was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages.) 

Related:

  1. To Be a WINNER...Or, to Be GOOD? That is the question.
  2. Four Realms of Discipline in a Standing Bow
  3. Remembering Steve Jobs - The Candle that Burned Brightest

 

October 12, 2011 in Coaching, Education, Pattern Recognition, Religion, Spirit, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

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