Because Our Children Are Our Future
For those that do not know me I am a proud father of a beautiful little 5 and 3/4 — she’d insists that part was added - girl called Ava. From when she was around 2 years old Ava has been intrigued by my smart devices and i have found that they can add considerable value to her development, all be it always under supervision and in moderation. She watches Disney Films at home or on long journeys, we have styluses and apps for drawing, puzzles, and colouring, we read books together, play games etc … one of my fondest memories over the past 2–3 years has been from listening to music and watching music artists live, in particular when i first showed her a live performance from Adele at the Royal Albert Hall in 2011 singing “Someone like you”. I could tell in her eyes that dreams where being created, her imagination was running wild and a thirst for more had been created.
For me smart devices are the future of education. They can become a powerful tool for development and give unprecedented access to knowledge.
It’s only just the start, soon everything that can be, will be a connected device.
A few years ago I joined a company through my concerns as a parent, not because i was looking for the job, but because i believed in what they where aiming to achieve. The company's focus was trying to give more control to the parent, allowing them to restrict access and functionality of the childs smart device remotely. In essence we were trying to sell the parents more time and provide peace of mind, for the children it was to limit distraction, overuse/misuse and protection.
After a brief break for this space i now am at a startup called KidED. KidED is another team with a percentage being parents, that set out to make Children's ‘smart’ playtime/activities more productive.
KidED: Playtime, Educated.
What is it?
KidEd is an app for children ages three to eight that teaches valuable lessons while the child is playing games, watching videos, or using other apps on a smartphone or tablet. It has been developed with the help of cognitive scientists and children’s psychologists.
How it works
When KidED is activated, a window pops up at a pre-set interval and the child will be asked educational questions. By providing answers and completing tasks the window will close and previous activity resumed. Depending on their age and development, children learn a range of topics from the alphabet to solving math problems, or train their brains by problem solving and working out puzzles.
After the session ends KidED locks the device, reminding the child to take a break and ensuring they are not over doing it.
Are you a parent? Do you also own an Android device?
The app is currently in its early stages, we plan to build a more intelligent back-end so we can give a more tailored learning experience to each individual child, audio/voice has just been added and will be developed, content packages are continuously being added to our library, however, in just two weeks we plan to invite some beta users to help us develop KidED further. Ideally parents with children aged between 3–8. It will be on just Android devices to start whist we carry out private testing and than also available on Amazon devices when we open beta up to everyone.
If you own an Android or Amazon Device you can sign up for updates and early access by visiting www.kided.co
If you don’t own an android device and perhaps know someone that does please let them know about KidED or simply share the link www.KidED.co on social networks, Tag your friends who may be interested in those posts and help us spread the word, develop the product and help us to make children’s playtime more productive and educational.
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world
We would love as much feedback as we possibly can get. please do leave comments below as i will read them and respond. If for any reason you want to talk to me directly you can email tom (at) kided.co