My son was born last week Friday and I have begun to think about how he will be learning interacting with narrative. So today I decided to review an interactive storybook that is hosted on education.com
This story is just the three little pigs but what is very interesting it how children are interacting with technology at very young ages. I’ve seen toddlers as young as 2 years old using an iPhone and iPad to access apps and view content. There is a simple beauty to the way Mac has enabled young people to use their products. This particular interactive story reads the texts to the child, show pictures and allow for repeating and highlights words as they are read.
This is not the most innovative use of technology is storytelling but it's a simple and elegant design that allows for children to interface with the story using html 5 and touch screen technology.
I would have loved something like this as a child. A computer will never replace a parent reading to but as more and more house holds have both parents working digitals stories like this maybe become a stop gap solution for busy parents. This next generation of kids will be the screen generation, they will be raised with the internet and constantly accessing information and entertainment on screens either through virtual reality or just on smart phone like the ones we are all addicted to. It’s likely the beginning of the human cyborg where we are not complete unless we are connected to our technology.