There’ll also be more development around the idea of parental “dashboards” – ways they can log in from their own devices to see what their children have been doing, and how the apps they’re using are improving various skills. Increasingly, developers are designing their apps in the knowledge that parents will often be sitting alongside their kids and being an active part of the process. Yes, children do use apps alone, but that doesn’t mean they’re just “digital babysitters” as critics often suggest. This has understandably put many parents off any app that uses in-app purchases, but in 2015 we’ll see more actual children’s apps that use the model responsibly: as a way for parents to check if an app is suitable and enjoyable for their child before choosing which bits to pay for.Įxisting examples: Endless Wordplay, which sells packs of words to practise spelling, or Nosy Crow Jigsaws, which sells puzzles but unlocks them for free if parents own its other apps. One under-reported point: it’s rarely children’s apps that they’re playing, but usually games intended for adults. Responsible use of in-app purchasesĬhildren’s apps and in-app purchases is a very sensitive topic, thanks to the all-too-regular examples in recent years of kids blowing their parents’ credit cards on virtual items in mobile games. Nosy Crow Jigsaws uses in-app purchases in a parent-friendly way. We’ll see more apps this year that aim to put storytelling tools in the hands of children to create their own tales: whether pre-packed collections of characters, scenery and situations to play with, or stories that get children to write/draw in characters as they read.Įxisting examples: Tate’s Noisy Neighbours gets kids to draw their own characters, while TeleStory gets them filming their own TV shows. But until relatively recently, it was something ignored by many developers of book-apps: kids could tap on the screen to interact with characters and scenery, but the actual story remained decidedly linear. It sounds like a blitheringly obvious statement – of course children tell stories. Identities? Plural because there won’t be one single format that works.Įxisting examples: the genre-blurring fun in Jack and the Beanstalk by Nosy Crow or Dino Dog – A Digging Adventure. How can text, animation and touchscreen interactivity blend together in new and engaging ways? Children’s apps sit neatly between books, TV and games, and I suspect we’ll see more launched this year that manage to mix those three formats unclunkily. There’s still a place for that, but there’s plenty of room for invention too: less about apps trying to be better than books, and more about being different. It’s no surprise that the first few waves of children’s apps – at least the ones telling stories – took their cues heavily from books, complete with digital pages to turn. Digital storytelling finds its identities
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