Creative Consuming: Making technology educational for kids



At the airport last week, I saw a family of four sitting at a nearby table waiting for their flight and I couldn’t help but notice that all of them were plugged in and tuned out – including the children.

It reminded me of the early days when the iPad came out and it was top of my youngest son’s wish list. As much as I was excited about the product, like many parents I was cautious about how much screen time he should have – and what he might be missing out on in the real world when glued to the screen. Today, the iPad is at the heart of his education – he is lucky to go to a school where the teachers work hard to be IT-savvy and put technology at the centre of their approach.

Kids-and-Tech

Regular readers will know just how much I am fascinated by the way technology can affect our lives. The news this week of Solar Impulse 2, which completed the first-ever solo flight around the world fuelled purely by solar power and set a host of world records, certainly caught my attention. The flight – beginning and ending in Dubai and stopping in India, Myanmar, China, Japan, the US and Europe along the way, including a five day, non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean – proved truly innovative, straining the existing limits on sustainable growth and proving that incredible things can be achieved with clean technologies.

The project was led by the inspirational two-pilot team that completed the mission: Bertrand Piccard, chairman of the project and a medical doctor who made the first non-stop round-the–world balloon flight, and André Borschberg, CEO and a professional airplane and helicopter pilot. Joined by a talented 90-person team full of engineers and technicians, and supported by over one hundred partners and advisers, the project served to put technological innovation to practical use – one that will really benefit the future of humanity.

So what are the tech innovators of today and tomorrow doing for children?

And what are they doing to ensure children and teenagers are both safe and able to maintain a healthy balance between digital and the world around them? Even tech entrepreneurs themselves have made public their own concerns, including Blogger, Twitter and Medium founder Evan Williams and 3D Robotics CEO Chris Anderson. Their rationales varies, but tend to fall within the lines of keeping kids from getting addicted to technology – and many parents, including iLike founder Ali Partovi, are keen to differentiate between time spent creating versus consuming on devices.

Despite this ongoing debate, tech companies targeting children and teens have been in a particular area of growth recently. No longer confined to the more “adult” iPads, Kindles and smartphones, companies that have traditionally targeted children now offer tablets configured for younger ages, such as LeapFrog’s line of brightly-coloured devices and VTech’s offering for children aged 3-6 years old. Some companies are turning their focus to ‘productive’ digital time for children: Amazon has recently created a platform for their Kindle Fire line that allows parents to set limits on gaming time and encourages reading.

A recent report from Euromonitor International stated that wearable devices are going to be the next big thing in consumer electronics, with a projected volume growth of 29% CAGR and a projected sales increase of more than US$60bn by 2020. In particular, the subcategory of children’s wearables have recently seen more activity as manufacturers have identified greater potential  for wearable devices targeted at kids.
Tech-Will-Save-Us

So I was both happy and not surprised to hear that Technology Will Save Us, a tech company dedicated to developing products that encourage learning, launched its most recent product in May of this year, its first wearable designed specifically for kids. The ‘Mover’ is a small, round device housed in a plastic case and loaded with eight LED lights, an accelerometer sensor and a magnetometer. Kids can assemble the pieces, which come as a kit, to create a programmable device that responds to movement with light patterns that change depending on how it is programmed, and can be worn in an infinite number of ways. According to founder and CEO Bethany Koby, the purpose of the kit is to teach kids the basic premise of technology: “When you give kids a few, but very powerful, parameters – movement, customisation, and an open-ended potential for it to respond to them – you can get it to do a million things. You don’t need a million sensors, you actually just need a few to be really creative.”

A notable difference between The Mover – and many of the other products made by Technology Will Save Us – and other tech devices marketed to kids is the lack of a screen. The device utilises a computer during the programming process, but in and of itself does not have a screen – and therefore caters to Ali Partovi’s preferred side of the fence in tech. Rather than providing ‘consumable’ entertainment, the Mover encourages active play, learning and adventure with technology.

“When you give kids a few, but very powerful, parameters – movement, customisation, and an open-ended potential for it to respond to them – you can get it to do a million things. You don’t need a million sensors, you actually just need a few to be really creative” – Bethany Koby, founder and CEO of Technology Will Save Us

According to Bethany, the remit of the company is to create a relationship with tech – kids should be able to be productive and creative – and since the business is mission-driven, all of its products are created with this target in mind. She says: “The Mover kit takes education to the next level. It goes beyond participation and creating by incorporating movement, creating a very exciting opportunity for what it means to learn – kids are engaged and playful, and learn more than they would at a school desk or with a regular educational toy. Kids are less intimidated by the idea of tech, because the device conforms to them, rather than forcing them to confine themselves to the traditional idea of the tech sector.” Most importantly, she says, there are no notifications – unlike wearables for adults. The device caters to the imagination.

“The Mover kit incorporates movement, creating a very exciting opportunity for what it means to learn – kids are engaged and playful, and learn more than they would at a school desk or with a regular educational toy. The device is less intimidating because it conforms to them, rather than forcing them to confine themselves to the traditional idea of the tech sector.” – Bethany

It seems like everything can be done on a screen these days: from paying bills to reading a book, to controlling the temperature in a house. And as a technophile myself, I can’t deny the how difficult it can be to pull away from the devices around me. But while the debate surrounding “digital detox” when it comes to the younger generations and their interactions with technology continues, it is obvious that innovation continues at an earth-shattering pace – and that the future leaders of the tech industry, like those who were part of the Solar Impulse 2 project, will need to be brought up in the digital era, interacting with technology early and often. The leaders of the future need to be creative, curious and capable of understanding how technology works – and it could well be the Mover and similar products that make that connection at a young age.

Moira@thembsgroup.co.uk | MoiraBenigson | TheMBSGroup