Learning Friends

Nameless Company now Big Time Science

2006-09-23T04:25:00.000-07:00

Tim Ericson of eeps.com and I decided on a name for the new company receiving an NSF SBIR grant (which he won). We chose Big Time Science (for kids). Our former project officer, Sally Nerlove, commented that naming a company is difficult. You would like to call it something like the gritty, delicious stuff you scrape from the bottom of a pan, which had a name in Bantu she learned while in the Peace Corps in Africa. Our intent is to give kids a real experience of the Nature of Science on a scale that reveals the essence of participating in a scientific community looking at a common data set and writing about it from the empirical perspective of many researchers, each of whom has a partial view. Our next step is to move the kids' tools for writing about science online so we can share them with you all. Stay tuned.

Google Science Foo

2006-09-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

Google recently invited Learning Friends' CEO, Ann McCormick and her colleague, Tim Ericson from eeps.com to the first Science Foo at the Googleplex, a remarkable event attended by 100 scientists "doing interesting things" in their fields. Among the remarkable things about this conference were the openness to new ideas of all attending, and the fact that they all "showed up" with their whole selves, including their humor and intent of being helpful to the planet and its people. Larry Brilliant spoke about ridding the world of Smallpox, and included a photo of his guru in the PPT. Tim Ericson gave a hands-on demo of science journal writing tools for kids, with real scientists trying out the prototype system along with the National Science Foundation Project Officer who awarded a new grant for continuing this work. Eric Case from Google met us approaching the campus and guided us through registration with grace and care, and introduced us to very important people, including the incredible chef from Google who masterminded food for the event. Everyone present could create their own presentation for this event, and attend any the others invented. There was an awesome science-modeling cartoonist, science fiction writer, Jaron Lanier of VR fame (Ann's former boss when she was VP of VPL Research), and scientists in an array of fields who usually don't comingle. It was great! Thanks Google, and thands, Nature Magazine.

NSF Grant Awarded

2006-03-17T23:20:00.000-08:00

Tim Ericson just won a Phase II grant from the Small Business Innnovative Research branch of the National Science Foundation. With encouragement from NSF, he invited Ann McCormick to serve as CEO for a new company that will carry out the SBIR project, creating online science collaboration software for kids who become a community of scientists running a series of miniature experiments, writing journal articles citing their hypotheses and findings, experiencing editorial review of their articles, and doing peer review.

The purpose of the grant is helping young people in Middle School and High School experience the nature of science. Tim is known for superb work in physics education, writing Den of Inquiry during the last NSF SBIR grant. The new company will focus on online applications in math and science. Ann is also CEO of Learning Friends, too, so will assure a close cooperative relationship between the companies. An NSF Project Officer called Ann and asked her to take good care of Tim, who NSF considers a National Treasure.

Children's Institute

2006-03-17T23:17:00.000-08:00

We had two great meetings with Joey Pan from the Children's Institute in Nanjing. He's helping our interns with plans for entering the China market. Meeting with him I was delighted to find an ease and trust that is rare in any country. I have great hopes for Learning Friends and Children's Institute working together.

Learning Friends

2006-03-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy entering every single business competition we could get our hands on! These include

BASES (Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students) Social E-Challenge

(http://bases.stanford.edu/site/socialechall/index.jsp) – We made it to 2^nd round!

William James Foundation Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition (http://www.williamjamesfoundation.org/) – We made it to 2^nd round!

HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) International Business Plan Competition (http://www.bm.ust.hk/mba/BusinessPlan2006/) – We made it to the semi-final round!

For the HKUST, we already won a $1000 cash prize, and will be flying to Hong Kong on May 4th to pitch the Learning Friends idea to top businesspeople and venture capitalists in China. This is a very exciting time for us, in which we may see our dreams come to reality!

We even had the opportunity to present Learning Friends in another competition at University of San Francisco, but had to withdraw because it was right smack in the middle of our finals week!

In the mean time, we will be very busy preparing for the next round of competitions! Looks like its going to be a very busy spring break for all of us at Stanford!

article about video/sims helping kids learn

2006-02-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

here is a recent article in the s.f. chronicle about video and computer games being great supplemental learning tools for kids in the classroom:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/20/BUG86H9SBD1.DTL&hw=video+helps+kids+learn&sn=001&sc=1000

Hand waving boosts mathematics learning - Breaking News | Print | New Scientist

2006-02-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hand waving boosts mathematics learning:

Gestures that complement rather than simply illustrate verbal instructions can boost children's ability to complete problems in mathematics, researchers report.

'The teachers are giving the kids two different approaches to the problem - one by hand and one by mouth - and somehow they seem to complement one another,' says Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago, US. She adds that early findings also show that students who copy the gestures of their teachers are more likely to learn.

Goldin-Meadow and her colleagues gave 160 children between the ages of eight and 10 a set of mathematical problems to solve. The students were randomly assigned to receive either verbal instructions alone or also with gestures. Those in the latter group either received gestures that copied or complemented the spoken guidance.

As part of the experiment students had to complete the equation "7+6+5=?+5". Teachers told the youngsters that they had to make one side of the equation match the other side.

The gestures simply duplicating these directions involved the instructors pointing to the left-hand and then the right-hand sides of the equation. When using complementary gestures, however, the teachers pointed to each of the numbers on the left and then signalled the subtraction of the five on the right side by scooping their hand away from the number."

Great clarity about China in the world

2006-02-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Dean of the School of Journalism at UC, Berkeley is quoted in an interview in California magazine. It's great to find a writer who has studied China for 50 years and also writes for Wired. Maybe we can get involved with some of his Journalism students, who are photographers, writers and have great freshness and life.

5 most spoken languages

2006-02-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

According to FactMonster, 1999, the five most spoken languages in the world are:

1. Mandarin
863 million

2. Hindi (India)
357 million

3. Spanish
352 million

4. English
335 million

5. Bengali
200 million

Other sources: Portuguese and Russian are the next most frequent (170M each).

TigerDragon

2006-02-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

We found artist Lela Dowling through Frank Cirocco of LightSource Studios, creator of Miranda Dragon who appeared in our Hewlett Foundation project, Miranda's Math. Lela agreed to let us show her delightful dragon pictures during fund raising. She created them for a Science Fiction/Fantasy convention art show. The playfulness of Lela's art inspires me, so I keep the TigerDragon close while working on the MIT laptop project. We hope to work with these incredible artists as we move forward.

Thanks Lela and Frank! You put wind under our wings.

Chinese Design

2006-02-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

As we look at design of a Shanghai Sim for teaching Mandarin, I am noticing discussions of contemporary Chinese design. Business Week, January 24, 2006 contrasts Korean, Japanese and Chinese design:

Product placements in videogames

2006-02-01T22:24:00.000-08:00

Interesting that EA decided not to put product placements in the Sims. We are considering using placements to generate revenue inside "free" learning products. What do you think?

We may supply magazines with writing at levels users can read (lots of photos, a few simple words at first), and place ads in the magazines and elsewhere in the sim.

TV shows for kids, even on PBS, on shows like Sesame Street that yields high revenue for licensed character products like Big Bird jammies. Do we want to spread this approach around the developing world?

If not, where is the sustained, long term, major funding needed to supply what's needed for kids in the third world? And how do we avoid the bureaucracy that doubles the labor and quarters the creativity of contracts with governments and publishers? There's somebody out there who would like to see wonderful, free education for 100M kids, aged 5-18. Talk about a legacy!

Alternatives to $100 Laptop

2006-02-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates at CES proposed the cell phone connected to a TV and keyboard as an alternative to the $100 laptop. It will be interesting to see all the alternatives proposed. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs offered their respective OSs to use free (at least the entry version) for the $100 laptop. Linux won out as part of the open source philosophy.

Entrepreneurial Challenge

2006-02-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last night at Stanford's magnificent Wallenberg Hall, we met with Stanford students who signed up at the Career Fair on campus and industry professionals interested in moving the $100 laptop project forward.

The intros included viewpoints of a creator of kinematic hair knowledgable about the physics of fish fins and how hero fish act at Pixar, a doctoral student familiar with research on entrepreneurship as the infinite corridor at MIT that has it's own sunset light phenomenon called MIThenge, which I found amusing.

A Phillipines-born computer science Stanford student said women are told, "If you don't have talent in math or science you can be a teacher" which she considers terrible. That is why, around the world, students need the "public eLearning system" we propose that stands alongside the public school system.

Ironic that although my doctoral work was on reading and Black Dialect in the US, I hadn't tumbled to the need in China for village people to learn "speaking better Mandarin," just as "speaking broadcast English" can help country people here get better jobs.

The Stanford students are going forward with an executive summary of our project to use in four entrepreneurship challenges. Chuck said, "Why not kill two birds with one stone" and Larissa Co said, "How about 4 birds." So we're looking for undergrads to help with the business side.

Hello Africa, South America and Europe!

2006-01-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

The map of visitors to our blog shows people are tuning in from around the world. We welcome you to contact us and tell us who you are! Have you heard about the MIT $100 laptop? Are you interested in having your young people learn English or Mandarin in a playful way that involves speaking and listening? What are you interested in these days? Ann

Greg Johnson and Michael McCormick

2006-01-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

Today we had lunch with Greg Johnson (one of the creators of ToeJam and Earl) and Michael McCormick. Greg is a really nice guy and I enjoyed getting to meet him and was thrilled that he wants to help us with a Sim for Mandarin/English education. He's almost fluent in Japanese and Thai and is teaching English as a 2nd language so he has lots of thoughts about language education.

For the past 25 years, Greg Johnson has been an independent game designer, establishing a unique reputation for creativity and character design. He has published seven successful software titles, winning numerous prestigious awards, and receiving wide-spread acclaim.

Greg's first titles, Starflight along with its sequel, published by Electronic Arts, sold close to one million units, and has been credited as the first successful graphic adventure game for the PC.

Throughout 1998 and 1999, Greg served as Creative Director for ePlanet, Inc., a company dedicated to developing new vision-based technology and to creating ground breaking vision-enabled software products. Greg designed several products for EP, including their flagship product, Freeblenux , a cutting edge, interactive, 3D, vision-enabled virtual character.

Greg also gave us a copy of a CD he created recently called Choo Choo Soul, it's kids music that adults enjoy too and it's pretty rad.

Integrating Emerging Telephony with Mandarin/English Language Learning

2006-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Above is an initial snapshot of the cool tools and emerging telephony applications we would like to integrate with our English and Mandarin Language Learning Sim.

Learning Friends Demo

2006-01-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Ann McCormick showed attendees and press at the E-tel Fair the Learning Friends demos, which were funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education, NSF, and the Hewlett Foundation.

IMG_0885.JPG
Originally uploaded by eesley.

We completely ran out of handouts and business cards as people crowded around our table during the two hour event to meet Ann and hear her show the demos. We again met people, one an MIT alum, who had loved Reader Rabbit and Rocky's Boots as a kid.

Tad Hirsch

2006-01-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Tad Hirsh is a PhD student with the MIT Media Lab and is presenting his social and civic applications, built using open source technologies (including Asterisk) and focusing on Speakeasy. Speakeasy is an integrated internet and telephone service that connects new immigrants (mostly Chinese speakers) with a network of multilingual volunteers who answer questions, give advice, and provide language interpretation over the phone.

Inveneo

2006-01-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

ETel Reception
Originally uploaded by x180.

Bob Marsh from the non-profit Inveneo gave a talk on the work they are doing bringing solar-powered communications systems (voice and computing) to rural villages in Uganda.

I've enjoyed chatting throughout the conference with Aaron Huslage from Inveneo about the work he's been doing helping with the Katrina disaster.

David Isenberg

2006-01-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

David Isenberg gave a Dr. Suess-esque call to battle for less regulated communications - check out the project he's working on in Washington, DC. Freedom To Connect.

For other conference updates, see the official coverage here.

O'Reilly Conference Update

2006-01-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

Last night, Ann and I had a great time presenting the Learning Friends demos at a table at the ETel Fair. Surj was nice enough to fit us in at the last minute. All the people who came by our table gave us a lot of ideas about using telephony applications with the Sim we have planned. Ann remarked that each person was so different and it was fascinating chatting with such smart people about our project. (Pics from the Fair and our table will be uploaded soon!)

This morning featured some great speakers including Norman Lewis, Jean-Marc Frangos Senior VP Technology and Innovation at the British Telecom, Sean Egan from Google, and Michael Robertson from Sipphone.

I talked with Jean-Marc Frangos at the break and he mentioned that we should contact Orb.com.

Michael Robertson
Originally uploaded by x180.

I also spoke with Michael Robertson, who told me we should get in touch with him and a group he's worked with called FriendsAbroad, which is giving people an opportunity to meet over the internet and communicate via voice to learn languages. This is exactly what we were thinking of for use between China and the U.S. for Mandarin and English pronunciation/speaking/listening practice, so it would be a great service to integrate with along with the open source VoIP stuff that Michael is doing with Sipphone.

Telephony link

2006-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

The telephony angle is that the 1st product is teaching English/Mandarin speaking and pronunciation (in addition to reading/writing). We'd like to use Skype/VOIP/pod-casting to get kids in the U.S. learning Mandarin and kids in China learning English to talk with each other and work on their pronunciation that way via the app. These kids in China are going to inherit the world's superpower and to help build links and enhance communication with kids in the U.S. and the rest of the world is vitally important.

Peter Cochrane
Originally uploaded by x180.

Ann said that Peter Cochrane's keynote address this morning was the best talk she's heard in 10 years. It outlined many of the tremendous opportunities and rapidly changing trends happening in the telecommunications revolution as disruptive technologies come forth.

Peter, Ann, and I also chatted with David Isenberg, who has a long-standing interest in speech and was also involved in a number of really interesting projects. We look forward to talking with him more at lunch.

David Pollack introduced Ann to Ed Niehaus. Ed Niehaus is an advisor with Cypress Ventures. He serves as a board member and active advisor to several nanotechnology and software startups. Previously, Ed was CEO of Niehaus Ryan Wong, Inc., the public relations agency that drove campaigns for VeriSign, Yahoo!, Apple's iMac and many other brands and companies. Ed has a BSME degree from Duke University so we're both Duke alumni.

Update from the Conference

2006-01-24T16:28:00.001-08:00

Today we met many fascinating people at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony conference. We were probably most excited to meet and talk with Norman Lewis. He is currently the director of Technology Research for the Home Division of France Telecom. Prior to this he was the director of Technology Research at Wanadoo UK (formerly Freeserve.com). Currently he is an Executive Board member of the Communications Futures Programme at MIT – a global research partnership between industry and six laboratories at MIT, Cambridge Mass.

He mentioned in our conversation that he is participating in the planning committee World TELECOM 2006 that will be held in China (Hong Kong) – the first time this event will take place outside of Geneva. Of course, Learning Friends would love the opportunity to attend this event.

He was the director of Globalisation and Power in the 21st Century (GAP21) – a not-for-profit organization set up in 1999 that aimed to bring industry, government, academia, policy makers, and civil society together to debate the social impact of information and communications technologies on 21st Century society.

Also of particular interest to our project, he is currently jointly writing a book with a leading UK sociologist on the subject of digital children and their encounter with innovation in a risk-averse culture.

We also chatted with Ann and Eric's friend Dom from Odeo. There is obviously great potential for collaboration on our project between Odeo or other voice applications and pod-casting tools since we are looking to incorporate cool new tools to connect children in China and the U.S. (and all over the world) who want to practice speaking with one another in Mandarin or English and learn about each other's countries.

O'Reilly Conference

2006-01-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

Surj Patel
Originally uploaded by x180.

We just had a great dinner and conversation with Surj Patel, who is organizing the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference that we're going to this week as his guest. He was very helpful and gave us many excellent people to contact who he has worked with. We'll be following up with these people and also moving forward as he suggested with raising some funds to build an initial prototype.

Jan. 31st meeting

2006-01-21T21:46:00.000-08:00

Edward booked room 120 of Wallenberg Hall for Tuesday, January 31 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. The room can accommodate about 25 people and has wireless internet. In case you need to call, his cell phone is 951-440-1537.

Career Fair

2006-01-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who came up and talked with us at the Stanford Career Fair! We had a great time meeting and chatting with you all. We're very impressed by the level of interest in Learning Friends at the fair and the stack of resumes we came back with!

We'd love to get your thoughts, suggestions and ideas going on the blog or circulating in an email thread. Frequent or insightful commentors may be asked to join the blog as an official contributor. I'm also hoping to organize a meeting either at Stanford (possibly Jan. 31st) or here at Ann's house (possibly on a Sunday) for those interested in attending and helping us move this project forward. Our hope is that natural leaders will come forward who will take the initiative to organize the rest of the group of students and interns once I am back at MIT. Any who would like to work with us on fundraising and the plans and documents needed to support that effort are especially appreciated. It would be great if a couple people came forward who are interested in working on the marketing aspect of the business plan, a couple for the finance model. Then I suspect a core group will focus along with Ann on the design / programming / technical side. We have a meeting next Friday on that topic with Ann and lead creative designers, Michael McCormick and Greg Johnson that I am really looking forward to seeing.

Stanford Career Fair

2006-01-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

Today we met the most amazing and brilliant people at Stanford, and many were willing to become interns at Learning Friends. Chuck arranged for us to attend, and it was terrific.

Who We Are Looking For

2006-01-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

- Entrepreneurial students for both the business and technical side

- CS students with web application and Linux knowledge interested in being among the first to program for the MIT laptop.

- Business-oriented students, marketing and finance positions, self-starters with creative marketing ideas for China/U.S.

Learning Friends, Inc. is looking for highly talented programmers / software engineers as well as business students for marketing and finance positions, email ann@learningfriends.com with a short statement of interest and a resume

The Standard

2006-01-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

A recent article from one of China's business newspapers points out the opportunities for digital educational content in China.

"Educational services" for China is likely to be a growth area. While China has a number of good schools, its educational system lags behind where it wants and needs to be. Demand is likely to outrun supply.

Developing educational services, either educational tourism (courses for students and businessmen) here in Hong Kong or digital educational content to be delivered to those ubiquitous devices (worksheets and educational software to the US$100 laptops, educational podcasts and streaming videos to iPods and cellular phones) promises to be a good business in the years to come.

Computer Games and Education

2006-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

The BBC News today has an article covering a survey of teacher's attitudes towards computer games for learning and education. It touches on one of the key aspects of Learning Friends software.

Personalisation

This week computer games companies are among around 600 suppliers of educational technology exhibiting at the annual technology show Bett.

Some teachers and educationalists believe that computer software and games offer the potential to "personalise" learning by allowing pupils to learn at their own pace and have more control over how they learn.

Marius Frank, Head Teacher at Bedminster Down School in Bristol, who is taking part in the Teaching with Games project, said: "I am excited and intrigued by the prospect of using gaming technology in the classroom.

"Individualised learning, at rates hitherto thought impossible, may be the norm if we get it right."

Building on years of experience

2006-01-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

IMG_1195.JPG
Originally uploaded by annmccormick.

Ann McCormick brings her decades of teaching and tutoring experience to the software Learning Friends is developing.

We've been so busy there's barely time to update the blog, however, we've got an exciting couple of weeks coming up. On Thurs. Jan. 19th we'll be at the Stanford BASES Technology and Entrepreneurship Career Fair, so stop by our table! We've also been given passes to attend the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference Jan. 24th-26th. We're really looking forward to meeting with a lot of people there.

. . . more updates when we have a chance!

Amie's Back

2006-01-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

Amie Watson, Ed.D. joined the Learning Friends team (again)! Amie is famous, at least around here, for creating the superb content architecture that "feeds" the assessment engine with research-based skills and concepts, laid out with excellent precision. Amie went on from being a founding member of Learning Friends to create a very succhessful cookie and fine food business, Too Good Gourmet. She has that well in hand with millions of pounds of cooke dough baking in her ovens (yes, really), and has taken on the task of curriculum definition for ESL on the $100 laptop. Dr. Watson has a distinguised career as an educator, with many years at the UCLA Seed School, where she was head of curriculum while serving on the UCLA faculty. Mary Laycock, for decades the math specialist at the Nueva School and inspiration for Learning Friends' math programs, recommended Amie as the best person in the world to design math curriculum with us. We are thrilled to have her!

Jan. 8th meeting

2006-01-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

IMG_0864
Originally uploaded by annmccormick.

Pictured are Ann McCormick, Brian Narelle, Meera Chary (Outreach Program Director, GreatSchools, and Ash Dyer at our meeting on Sunday. Ann was giving a demonstration of the simulated worlds demos that Learning Friends has created previously. Seven of us attended the meeting (8 if you include our resident 6 year old, Eric). Each person introduced themselves and what they brought to the project. We also discussed what the target market will be, the age range, cultural issues in adapting the software for other countries, and the scope/scaling of our first efforts. In addition, we spent some time talking about potential business models and revenue sources. It was an exciting meeting with many diverse minds and approaches to thinking about the project. We're already looking forward to our next meeting this coming Sunday!

Learning Friends

2006-01-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

Hopefully we didn't lose too many of our readers in migrating over to Learning Friends and retiring the Miranda Stories name. We decided to integrate the blog and the project more with directly with Learning Friends. This project will represent a division of Learning Friends.

We're excited to have the first of a series of business meetings with the other founders this Sunday to work on the business plan and vision for the project.

There is also another Wiki on the laptop project which mentions more about software. I'm not sure what the rules for Wiki's are about mentioning companies, but it seemed that our project is relevant enough that I mentioned it in the article.

More to come soon . . .

Simulated World for English Language and Reading

2006-01-03T23:32:00.000-08:00

Today Ann and I decided we want to create a simulated world to teach the kids English language and reading. The sim will have cool tools inside, and tremendous cleverness. We're starting on the business plan and strategy. The goal for this month is creating a high-level design, plan, budget and financial model for getting a return on investment.

We've also decided to run an experiment in trying to keep this project as open as possible so that if anyone out there (from all over the world) has ideas or suggestions they want to contribute that there are avenues such as this blog or a Wiki for you to contribute. We certainly hope that you all will pitch in and play with us on this exciting startup project!

These changes mean that we may soon change names and blog sites. Stay tuned!

Progress on Miranda Stories and on the Laptop

2006-01-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've flown out to CA and am now working full time on the Miranda Stories concept with Ann in Woodside, CA and we're having a great time with it and making progress by the hour. We'll be at the Stanford Career Fair potentially recruiting more entrepreneurial programmers and teammates so you can look for our table there Jan. 19th.

There is now a Wiki which outlines the software development issues and guidelines for the $100 "Green Machine" laptop. This gives us the details that we will need and the limitations to be aware of with the current hardware and operating system.

A manufacturer has also been chosen to actually produce the laptop.

Laptop gets a UN debut

2005-11-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

A prototype of a cheap and robust laptop for pupils has been welcomed as an "expression of global solidarity" by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The green machine was showcased for the first time by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte at the UN net summit in Tunis.

He plans to have millions of machines in production within a year.

The laptops are powered with a wind-up crank, have very low power consumption and will let children interact with each other while learning.

"Children will be able to learn by doing, not just through instruction - they will be able to open up new fronts for their education, particularly peer-to-peer learning," said Mr Annan.

He added that the initiative was "inspiring", and held the promise of special and economic development for children in developing countries.

MirandaStories site about to go live

2005-11-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Sarah Zemenick and Taija Dilfer have helped create children's software since they were able to hold a crayon. Once again they stepped up to help design and build the Miranda Stories web site, after a history of testing products, for Sarah starting at age 2. Taija reminded Ann today that she brought graph paper to her at age 9 and asked, "If you were going to make an apple using only these squares, how would you do it?" Taija produced graphics for Apple II and Atari 800 software in the 70s. So Sarah, Taija and Ann have a 25+ year history working together, involving years of Taija and Sarah pitching in to make things work for Ann. Now Taija is a professional artist in Portland, and Sarah an acupuncturist, herbalist and Qigong teacher. Both are web developers and most generous in providing expert support for Ann with ventures small and large.

Taija joins team

2005-11-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

Taija Dilfer, designer, illustrator and concept artist creates graphics from scratch, unlike many artists. She has worked with many clients, starting with the Learning Company when she was nine years old. Working with Ann, Taija produced her first professional graphics for Atari preschool games: Juggles' Rainbow and Juggles' House. Taija designed a phonetic keypad and other graphics for a Learning Friends reading program, a suite of presentation materials, including the PPT for investors and helped form company strategy as Chairman's Assistant. Taija's experience includes creating all the graphics, character design and development for a Teacher Universe onsite tutorial "how to" for teachers. Besides working on education oriented projects, Taija produced a sleek music web site, conducted research at Cheskin, a brand innovation company and works on fine art. Taija earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at U.C., Santa Cruz.

Work sample:
Critters and Crates

Who would we like to talk with about this project?

2005-11-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

John Bransford, UW

Nicholas Negroponte, MIT

Robert Sternberg, Yale

Seymour Papert, MIT

Alan Kay

Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google)

Christopher Cerf

People who know about cultural differences in key countries--Fred Litto in Brazil, Haiming Wu in China, who else?

Students with good ideas in many fields (Stanford and Harvard tech ed MAs)

Anybody with good ideas

Kids

What's needed to keep kids engaged in learning?

2005-11-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

Why do the SIMS work and sell so well--and cost $35M to develop? Complexity of infrastructure and personality?

Why do boys love videogames and play them so long?
Fast-action relates to hunter instincts?

Why do girls fiddle with drawing, love erasing for hours?
Relates to nesting instincts?

Who creates our stories, geared to archetypal interests (not hoaky like Reader Rabbit, heroic and full of danger and darkness like Harry Potter, tragic interest like Beauty and the Beast, classic story structure like 3-act play)?

Who are our characters (love them, identify with them--Cinderella; hate them, scared of them--bad witch); are they different for age 5-7, 8-10?

How do we get music that's great like Disney movies?

Where do we have kids go, maintain a sense of place (immersion in a believable fantasy place that has familiar elements but is not home)?

How do we keep the texture of reality (movies, painterly graphics, 3D where interesting--Zsoka can help).

How do we provide accomplishment and completion ("you did it, you win,"; Boy Scout Badges and levels-- Eagle Scouts) and not kill natural curiosity?

What links to real world experience will families actually use (will families extend screen experience to real world with all senses and movement--cooking food of the country in the game)

What's needed first?

2005-11-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

What's needed first?
Usable interface
Bootstrap--"How to" that's really good for internal tools
Layered approach to tools (little paint, medium paint, big paint; Use it twice, get more options).
Download stream manager (lo res, small screen movies on narrow band)
Spam blocker
Network of support
Sorting through the morass to get good free resources(sorting, relating to age level interests and skill level of reader)
A good model of a theme-based project online, cross-aged, slice of entire offering
A way to attract manage "guest stars" who make walk-on appearances, including cartoons (Disney Princesses in walk-on roles)

How much support will users need?

2005-11-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Questions:
Do people in poverty areas need service they can't afford?
Who maintains networks, troubleshoots viruses?
Where's the genius bar?

What are keys to economy in service being profitable?

2005-11-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

Ways to save money to make it work:
Aggregate credit card payments over time and submit once like Apple Music Store 99 cent downloads

Learning sites

2005-11-06T10:35:00.001-08:00

What are good sites about learning for kids, aged 5 to 10? Oriented toward home learning?

Graphical design resource sites?

2005-11-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

What are good sites about graphical design?

$100 laptop news, insight and background

2005-11-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

What are good sites about $100 laptop (that add authoritative new info or insight)?

Open Source background and resources

2005-11-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

What are good sites, including blogs, about open source? What key points do partners need to understand?

What sites (or other sources) tell us what we need to know about reading?

2005-11-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

Speech linked to hand movements (baby signs)

How can we monetize providing great open source software for kids on the $100 laptop (and today's computers)?

2005-11-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

Ways to monetize it:
Charge for services
Maintenance of network
Adwise
Sell commercial version that has support associated with it
Get network of live tutors behind the scenes at low cost, link into these for fee if kid is having difficulty
Sell progress reports to avid parents
Sell trinket rewards and award badges
Sell books, toys, kits (eg science experiments, crafts)
Character licensing (Disney, Henson, Lucas style) with marketing machine spinning out products in all sectors immediately upon release of massively interesting, gorgeous production like

Key questions about open source software for kids

2005-11-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Do the 5 countries who've signed up for $100 laptop plan to give any to kids in K-5?

Do $100 laptops have sound?
Is mobile phone enabled for Internet access or voice use?

Half Moon Bay Farm

2005-11-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

Concept demos created by our team show the idea of a painterly world, in contrast with most videogames and edutainment programs by its warmth and texture. These have tools like journal writing and illustration, post card sending with photos and voice.

Half Moon Bay Farm was funded by NSF SBIR funds, produced by Kirk Bergstrom of Worldlink, programmed by Glenn Corey and illustrated by Peter Babakitis (who still lets us use the images--thanks Peter). Zsoka Barkacs created the 3D elements, coins, apples, buttons, and as a gift, she created a spiral staircase that leads up the inside of Montara Lighthouse. I gave her a post card of the outside of Montara and the inside of Pillar Point, so that's what we have.

The farm teaches concepts of "how much-ness" for numbers six and seven, as chldren arrange coins, apples and pattern blocks around a central circle or hexagon, and watch bubbles form the same pattern they can also find in bee hives. With seasonal elements that change, like a pumpkin patch in October (with a pumpkin calculator and pumpkin video clips), kindergarden kids can learn science as well. Eggs are hatching in the hen house, they can plant seeds of vegetables and flowers and watch them grow then see inside the blooms and fruits. They can see how bees make a bee hive and their familly can order them a honeycomb to see "for real." The hexagonal pattern blocks become associated with things in nature, and as they make original designs, they discover some concepts underlying fractions. They can also build intuitive comprehension of a Buckminster Fuller concept--six circles of the same size always fit around one, and you can build upwards to form a tetrahedron (using apples). You can see the "six around one" pattern all over nature and in the works of man from chicken coops to floor tiles because it works. This game instills the joy of exploring, finding familiar things in nature that bring lasting delight, and applying them so they are part of a conceptual web cognitively.

Where Does Miranda Live?

2005-11-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

Miranda lives inside a huge tree with a door and a winding staircase inside that goes up many stories. Each landing has a book shelf. So you have first story stories, second story stories, etc. Now you also know why libraries have many branches. --Brian

Sarah built us a web site

2005-11-01T07:20:00.000-08:00

Sarah Zemenick built us a web site yesterday. After she got all the details taken care of, she taught me how to use BBedit and Transmit so I can fine tune the wording and keep building. Soon we'll "go live."

Best case scenario inspired "worlds"

2005-10-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

We immersed ourselves in a "best case scenario" at a remarkable school, the Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA, starting about ten years ago, then wove what we learned into our designs at Miranda Stories. The Nueva School was rooted in advice given to founder, Karen Stone-McCown by Nobel Laureates, Yehudi Menhuin, Stanford Behavioral Science Lab head who met for two years to determine what they needed in an educational experience. They said they'd have excelled cognitively no matter what, but needed more emotional intelligence to have a richer life. Daniel Goleman visited Nueva and that visit inspired his book, Emotional Intelligence. The school offered long term projects that integrate science, math, humanities, art and music. For example, the Middle School students studied Japan for three years, reading the Tales of Genji, learning Japanese, doing Aikido, each becoming an expert on a different aspect of Japanese life.

At Miranda Stories we will capture an immersive way of learning--based on integral methods of teaching at the most creative and finest private schools. This kind of learning enables kids to apply what they learn in new situations--essential in the changing world before us.

The 'Hood

2005-10-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

A second concept demo our team worked on, the 'Hood, is a hard-edged city simulation geared to African American urban youth--many of whom can't read. The kids go to a rap studio, create a grafitti wall, play basketball, work at a grill while mastering basic literacy skills. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education SBIR program at Mira Media, Inc., the 'Hood shows how a program that teaches the content and skills usually presented to little kids can be adapted to a compelling "world" for older kids who have largely given up the hope of learning to read. We'll start a new division of the company under a cooler name for older kids and adults, but keep the "high play value, high learning value" approach that's core to Miranda Stories.

Background at superb schools

2005-10-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

Miranda Dragon first appeared in Miranda's Math, a 3D web program inspired by Mary Laycock, California Math Teacher of the Year, Milken Award winner, this week-end off training teachers at age 90. Mary says, "Teaching is asking, not telling." And "it's OK to make a mistake, because that's how we learn."

We studied and videotaped Mary's masterful teaching at the Nueva School for eight years, with funding from Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group, from Founder of Nueva, Karen Stone McCown. We built prototypes with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Walter S. Johnson Foundation.

35 high tech companies sent products for us to use while exploring the classroom of tomorrow, and allocated time for key people to help us understand how learning works--from Apple Computer, Bill Atkinson made Nueva his lab for finding a breakthrough in learning, Alan Kay hired us to write up Mary's Math structure, had us talk with ATG programmers often, invited Mary to teach at the Apple offsite, loaned us a high-end video camera and arranged to have an Apple video made about Mary. The Library Corp, best library automation system according to ALA, funded automation of Nueva's library, Prodigy donated modems and along with the Well, provided free Inernet service and email for every child and teacher at the school. T-Maker gave us 100 copies of their great word processing program, Macromedia gave us copies of all their products and time with fellow, Young Harvill. VPL taught our kids to create and play in their own virtual realities and the kids taught "how to" VR class at the first Cyberthon in San Francisco.

It was a time of discovery about what could be in kids' computing in a broad spectrum of applications. Kids routinely created multimedia presentations, figured out how to extract cool sounds from Cosmic Osmo, and were eager especially to create animations.

This followed on a decade working with very low income schools that were making a difference for kids' learning reading and math, given stringent research criteria.

What is Miranda's Story?

2005-10-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

Miranda Dragon is a creation of Frank Cirocco of LightSource Studios, developed during a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

According to Frank, Miranda NEVER really fit into the world of dragons. The "classic" dragon philosophy of mayhem and destruction always makes her cringe. She does her best to live within the constraints of her heritage while following her heart in order to be true to herself.

Miranda is a teacher at an Institute that accommodates her eccentricities because her FATHER is the world-renown author of the book, Mortal Mayhem. Although she's thought of as rather odd because of her strange, pacifist ideas, the other dragons have chosen to look the other way because of her father's celebrity status. Still, her conviction goes far deeper than they know and there are certain activities she keeps from the dragons for fear of the repercussion it might have - especially on her esteemed father's career.

You see, it turns out that Miranda has gotten to know the humans and, gasp, she actually LIKES them. She has stolen away many times to a nearby village to learn about their customs and observe their lives in general. All from afar, of course, so as not to frighten them by her dragon appearance.

One day, as she is observing some children playing on the outskirts of the village, she saves them from peril and, in doing so, is forced to reveal herself to the villagers. When it is learned that Miranda saved their children, they do not fear her. In fact, they welcome her as a friend to their village. Beyond Miranda's wildest expectations, she can now observe and INTERACT with the humans face to face. It is during this time that Miranda is given the beautifully illustrated parchment scroll manuscript. Miranda reads it and recognizes it as the masterwork of a great teacher and realizes that THIS curriculum is her true calling in life.

Unfortunately, a member of the Institute's board of directors gets wind of a rumor that Miranda has actually been seen interacting with the humans at the nearby village. He decides to do something about Miranda's eccentricities once and for all.

One fateful day, she learns that graduate students from the Institute are scheduled to raid her little village as a qualifying examination for graduation. She is horrified to think that all of the village folk she has come to know and love so well are targeted for destruction - especially for such a senseless exercise.

She bravely and defiantly sets out to stop the carnage. She, with the help of the other villagers who now trust her, successfully defends their settlement by using brain against the other dragons' brawn.

The board members are enraged by this rebel act and put her on trial. It is during the hearing that Miranda attempts to present her vision of a new curriculum to the court, but they will have none of it. The old school dragon traditionalists would not be swayed. It is declared that Miranda is a disgrace to Dragondom and banished forever.

Mark Foster, a light house keeper, picks up Miranda's story next:

Miranda flies off to seek her fortune, carried by the winds across Europe to Asia. She spends some time in the mountains of China where the local dragons live in green pools and are much more aloof. There she teaches children as well, sharing the stories of her travels, she also learns about ancient wisdom and modern life in China. Miranda feels the stirrings of her curiosity and sets off flying over the Pacific, where she can't make through the storms and slides into the cold water. A pod of whales picks her up on their backs and delivers her safely to a cove in Half Moon Bay at the Montara Light house, where the lighthouse keeper and his daughter nurse her back to health. Miranda flies up to the Skyline ridge (home office of Miranda Stories) where she teaches the raccons, Zak and Rosie who appear in Miranda's Math.

Stages of Learning

2005-10-30T21:57:00.000-08:00

Jerome Bruner, in his chapter. “Organization of Skilled Action” in The Integration of a Child Into a Social World: (pp. 167-184) describes Luria's six stages of learning. Miranda Stories uses these to consider whether we've scaffolded learning at each stage when we develop software. We find it curious that when a dancer sees these, he says, "This is about dance, isn't it!" And a marketing person says, "This was written about marketing, right?" And so on. Actually it was an observation of babies learning to walk. We added the short captions used as headers.

STAGES OF LEARNING

STAGE 1 FOCUSING ATTENTION

The learner attends to the task and performs some anticipatory actions.

STAGE 2 CLUMSY TRYING

This is the clumsy stage. A loosely ordered series of actions occur, only roughly approximate, variable and requiring much effort.

STAGE 3 FALSE MOVES AND REPETITIONS

This changes to success with a short series of acts in proper serial order allowing for false moves, repetitions and self-corrections. There is a sharp noticeable alteration in the acts as if they had acquired a new structure.

STAGE 4 PATTERNS EMERGING

Reinforcement or success modifies the action pattern so that it becomes less variable.

STAGE 5 PARTS AUTOMATIC

With practice the learner does not need to attend to all sections of the sequence. Sub-routines are formed which the child executes with little attention. The learner is freed to attend to new aspects of the task. The sub-routines can become part of a new series of acts in a higher order structure.

STAGE 6 SKILLED, FLUENT PERFORMANCE

With more practice the skilled performance becomes less variable, anticipation becomes more accurate, and speed and fluency increase because an economy of attention has been made."

Design Philosophy

2005-10-30T21:50:00.000-08:00

We bring the beauty and harmony of nature to simulated “worlds” with compelling stories and characters, a sense of place, the sizzle of contemporary life, the textures of times past and the imaginings of times that never were.

We bring a deep understanding of interactivity gained over decades of collaboration between techies and teachers.

Our perspective includes what Ken Wilbur refers to as “the integral approach: inclusive, balanced and comprehensive.” Applied in simple form for children and those who care for them, and for older people needing basic learning, we draws on art, morals and science; individual and social spheres; subjective and objective experience.

We seek to respect stages of development of individuals and cultures and to view the universe from many perspectives, including masculine and feminine. We acknowledge the potentials present in all human beings, including ourselves in all states—waking, dreaming and sleeping.

We plan to ride the tide of low-cost computing reaching hundreds of millions of people with high quality, powerful, playful learning for all.

Integral Institute

"Almost every child can have a basic education" Yu Wei

2005-10-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

"Almost every child can have a basic education," says Wei Yu, former Education Vice-Minister who is now a vice-president of the Chinese Association for Science & Technology. "That's a big achievement if you think how large our country is."

"The scale of the educational challenge is indeed daunting. China has 218 million children in grade school through high school, more than the total populations of Japan and South Korea combined. There are over 10 million teachers and more than 500,000 schools in all, about 75% of which are scattered across the vast countryside, far from the coastal boomtowns."

Business Week

What do you understand about your business that other companies just don't get?

2005-10-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

This question was posed by Y Combinator

We "get it" 1) that learning progresses in manageable steps (not leaping through the alphabet in a single game), 2) that rapid prototyping and testing cycles with kids are crucial, 3) that hackers must come to field tests, 4) that learning experts must be involved throughout development, 5) that small development groups with tiny budgets make breakthroughs best; 6) that tracking progress and serving up what's
needed by kids creates a new category of software; and 7) that the market for kids software will rapidly expand when the market is flooded with $100 web-based laptops, and that free resources for kids on the web need a surround that adds a context.

Founders: Michael

2005-10-30T18:45:00.000-08:00

Michael S. McCormick began his career at the Learning Company as a kid, where he amazed industry leaders by inventing a "bag of holding" within Warren Robinett's graphics utility, used to develop Robot Odyssey (with chips inside chips to teach kids about modular programming) and Rocky's Boots, a circuit simulation. Michael was lead designer for the social structure underlying the Sims, a very complex system with 75 characters interacting. He produced several titles at Lucas Learning, including Star Wars - Gungan Frontier. Michael brings a background in Cognitive Science and Asian Studies plus an Ed.M. from Harvard University in Technology in Education.

SimCity 4
Sims 2 on console
Sims hot date
Gugan Frontier from LucasLearning

Founders: Brian

2005-10-30T17:50:00.000-08:00

Brian Narelle at Narelle Creative is a writer, cartoonist and actor who's spent most of career in the service of kids. His films and TV series have won numerous awards, including an Emmy for Best Children's Program in 2004 for a PBS Special. He wrote and co-starred in Bingo & Molly for the Learning Channel, Thelma Thumb for Sesame Street, over 30 films for Paramount, winning seven CINE Gold Eagles and Parents' Choice awards, was Supervising Animator on the Lucas feature Twice Upon a Time, wrote the 2001 Annie Award-winning Hubert's Brain, starred in John Carpenter's Dark Star, created the San Diego Chicken, worked a Creative Director for Mattel, Broderbund and Pixar, and cartooned for Grove Consulting and the KnOwhere Store. Brian is a graduate of USC Film School with a major in Cinema. Brian's work is writing and illustrating.

Brian's Cartooning

Founders: David

2005-10-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

David Fox co-founded the world's first public-access microcomputer center in 1977. Marin Computer Center was a prototype for bringing new technology to the public. David co-authored the books Computer Animation Primer, Armchair BASIC, and Pascal Primer, and then in 1982 became one of the founding members of the Games Division at Lucasfilm Ltd. (now LucasArts Entertainment Company) where he was a senior game designer and project leader for 10 years. He draws on his contacts and experience to attract and expertly manage top talent--voice, music and graphics, for high production-value products. David was the project leader, designer, and one of the programmers on an early game produced by LucasArts (then Lucasfilm Games), Rescue on Fractalus! Groundbreaking, people thought real-time generation of 3D fractal landscapes couldn't be done on an 8-bit home computer. David was the manager of entertainment software for the Lucasfilm/Hughes Simulation Mirage project, a multi-player, networked entertainment system intended for theme parks. David's other games also broke new ground and are still popular, spawning fan-created sequels and fan sites. David has a background in Engineering at UCLA and earned a degree in Humanistic Psychology at Sonoma State University. He is Director of Electric Eggplant, a web and media development company.

Electric Eggplant

Founders: Ann

2005-10-30T16:38:00.000-08:00

Ann H. McCormick, Ph.D. founded The Learning Company, a children's software company, with a grant from the Apple Education Foundation (a computer and $1,000), and with her team, launched a new category of software and a leading national brand. Ann co-designed 16 products, including Reader Rabbit, a best-seller for decades, and Rocky’s Boots, a circuit design simulation still available online. Ann set the style for products by writing and implementing design guidelines and choosing authors. All TLC product created when Ann was Chairman won national prizes and high critical acclaim. TLC went public then had a forced buy-out for $660M. Ann uniquely attracts great hackers and artists (from Lucasfilm, Henson, Disney, PDI, Harvard, Stanford, MIT—who bring play value and academic depth) to collaborate on creating beautifully designed learning products under her guidance. She earned her doctorate in education. UC published her monograph on Black Dialect and Reading, still used as a textbook after 30 years because of the insight it brings to a difficult subject. Ann gave the 100th Anniversary Commencement Address for the UC, Berkeley School of Education, many keynote addresses, appeared on Donahue, won awards (Parent’s Choice, Entrepreneur of the Decade from Junior Achievement and many others). She helped Jaron Lanier launch a VR company, lectured at Stanford in Departments of Business, Design, Education and Computer Science and is featured in a Harvard Business School Case. Ann continues to pioneer next-generation programs for transforming education using technology.

Ann's Resume

Founders: Chuck

2005-10-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Chuck Eesley, CFO, is currently an MIT PhD student in Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Chuck also has a B.S. from Duke specializing in Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. Chuck worked as a research assistant at the Duke University Medical Center, focusing on cognition in schizophrenia and fMRI neuro-imaging studies and at the Fuqua School of Business on research related to business strategy and innovation. In 2002 he won first prize ($50,000) in the Duke Startup Challenge with his first startup company Sun Dance Genetics, listed as one of Forbes Small Business top 14 startups in 2003.

Miranda Dragon

2005-10-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

Miranda is a wise old dragon who has travelled the world. She has many stories for young children, and words of wisdom for their families, too.