Dot Learnt

If you intend to excite your child about the world of books, our recent reading research is meant to help spread the word on ways to turn your tike into a confident enthusiast of reading. Utilize your eReader or tablet and check out our lucky 7 list of top reading apps for this summer!

The Going to Bed Book:
For the hands of your 2 – 5 year olds
Ridiculously cute, this book turned app follows the story of little critters as they get ready for bed. Striking the perfect balance between interaction and comprehension, you’ll love its focus on reading skills and creativity!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore:
For the hands of your 4 – 12 year olds
With an enthusiasm and zeal for words and animation that bursts off your eReader’s screen, this  app drives your little learner’s desire to read. Taps will change the season, swipes will work the pages – in its entirety, Mr. Morris Lessmore does justice to the reading process.

Aesop’s Quest:
For the hands of your 2 – 6 year olds
This learning game quizzes students on different elements of the story in order to progress to the next chapter or level. With a reward at the end of each segment, the quest is completed once you have acquired all the puzzle pieces – read, play and solve!

Reading for Details:
For the hands of your 4 – 11 year olds (different levels)
This MiniMod Bingo game helps students extract from their stories the 5W’s (Who, What, Where, When and Why). The interactive feature allows users to sync up their iPad with a buddy for a friendly round of reading competition!
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With long car rides, layovers and multi-time zone flights taking charge of your summer, you’re looking for ways to keep your little one occupied. We’re here to share with you ways to inspire a love for reading in your children with these eBook gems!

Solar Systems for iPad: Your child will be consumed for hours on end with this interactive exploration. You’ll have a grand tour of the diverse planet system. With over 40 fully rotatable and zoomable 3D objects and 600 images offered by NASA, ESA and JAXA space mission, your child will find this book to be out of this world!

Wild About Books: Named a New York Times Best Children’s Book for the iPad, this interactive picture book will take your child on an exotic safari excursion. Tilt, swipe and tap away to make the most of the unique 3-D environment.

The Adventures of BB and Sam: This Bon Education created eBook  explores multiculturalism and raises global awareness like  no other eBook I have come across. Plus, the parent pack is the go-to guide for how you can interact with your child in their reading process. Bon voyage! (more…)

Bon Education CEO Anna Batchelder will be leading a free online seminar-style course on P2PU.org June 4-July1, 2012.

This 1-month virtual seminar is for educators, learners and parents who are keen to discuss and compare education systems from around the world.

The course is divided into 4 modules each containing 2-3 online short videos, an optional reading, asynchronous discussions and an optional synchronous discussion (via Skype) around the following topics:

• Global definitions of learning and education (June 4-10, 2012)
• Cross-country education borrowing and lending (June 11-17, 2012)
• Educating the whole person (June 18-24, 2012)
• Creating sustainable education systems (June 25-July 1, 2012)

Bon Education creates innovative multi-media children’s book series, The Adventures of BB and Sam, using Apple iBooks Author.

Dubai, UAE – May 15, 2012 – Education technology company Bon Education announces the launch of The Adventures of BB and Sam - a new multimedia fiction book series that aims to take children on virtual adventures around the globe via the touch of an iPad. Created with Apple’s iBooks Author, the series is filled with text, illustrations, videos, mood music, photo galleries, quiz features and more.

“When Apple launched iBooks Author as a tool to create engaging multi-touch digital textbooks, we immediately thought to ourselves, ‘This is an amazing tool for creating children’s literature as well!’” said Bon Education CEO Anna Batchelder. “So many kids are choosing to watch TV and play video games over reading these days. By adding a variety of digital enhancements and interactivity to our books, we hope kids will rediscover their love of reading in a digital world.” (more…)

About a month ago, I talked TED – with the advent of TED-Ed, I was super pumped to hear the voices of brilliant educators around the world.

I decided to check back in on the site a few days ago, and to my delight, the site was up, running and transforming education as I have come to know it.

I clicked on the first lecture that caught my eye: The Power of Simple Words.

The 2-minute micro lesson starts off with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz chanting, “No coordinates exist like one’s domicile,” (get it?) to drive home the point that, bigger words does not necessarily mean, better.

We are currently in a day and age where we are competing with a whole world of distractions, “constantly fighting for space in an attention span that’s continuing to shrink across generations,” as the animated film points out. It got me thinking … are educators getting the message, that short is sweet?

Upon completing the lecture, viewers are guided through an online mini-curriculum.  A “Quick Quiz” tests you on the material in the video, “Think” issues a critical thinking question, while “Dig Deeper” provides a community project and additional resources that expand on the subject matter.

It is important for educators to know their audience. In a world where students are increasingly teched-out, teachers should speak to students in the language that they know. It was only last week that our Literacy Research Resident, Nelly Elzayat introduced us to a teacher’s assignment that had students summarizing Shakespearian passages into a text message. Check out the full post, Trading a Tweet for your GPA.

For more on our thoughts on TED, check out Bon Education’s Co-Founder and CEO – Anna Batchelder’s piece on educators and mass marketing in Coke is it! Why all Educators should be Mass Marketers.

So I guess I am here to say two things, keep it simple and

Keep Calm and Learn On,

Nora

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As a Literary Advisor at Bon Education and an Educational Diagnostician, Sue Ogden weighs in on the role of literature, language acquisition, and creativity in a tech-enhanced and infused world. Her work with literature and language has taken her from helping out in literacy programs in prisons to working in international backdrops to enhancing reading skills amongst students on movie sets. For the low down on how her experiences working with urban communities inspired her work in emerging markets, read on. 

10-20 Seconds: What’s the deal with being a Literary Advisor. Share with us your story on how you got to where you are today.

I went to school to be a High School Social Studies teacher. I found the field was flooded with lots of excellent teachers, and there was little room to be a true problem solver in these affluent schools where I taught.

I found a greater need for content rich teachers to support reading instruction in urban communities. It was here that I found that the problems that children in urban communities in the USA face are similar to the problems that students in emerging markets face, and thus decided to pursue the path of becoming an expert on literacy acquisition.

20 – 30 Seconds:  The ideal title of an e-book regarding your philosophy on life, literature and education. 

“The Five People I met in Prison”- I have met some of the most interesting people in prison, and they have all helped me find joy in the smallest snippets of life. They truly find joy in the little things, a colored pencil, a black pencil, being able to mop the floor on their birthday as a way to get out solitary for an extra hour. They get so excited about the smallest things. This makes it hard for me to come home in a bad mood, as I am constantly surrounded by a need to be grateful.  (more…)

Each month, the Virtual Roundtable Series sponsored by CISCO brings together distinguished education leaders to discuss observations, comments and ideas that are meant to transform education. During the week of February 20^th, the series hosted a roundtable on Social Media in Education – What’s Working and What’s Not.

Anna Batchelder, CEO and Co-Founder of Bon Education was invited to weigh in. Anna directed the conversation towards the use of social media as it relates to cross-cultural understanding, digital literacy and open education.

Alongside Anna, Dr. Ron Burnett, President and Vice-Chancellor at Emily Carr University of Art & Design addressed issues on social media and the philosophy of learning.  Judy O’Connell, lecturer at the School of Information Studies at Charles Stuart University exposed participants to e-learning, game-based learning, ICT in education and media literacy. (more…)

Hats off to the power of social media. By now, many of you might have come across the latest Facebook, Twitter and Internet sensation – Kony 2012. The 30-minute video is the brainchild of Jason Russell a young Australian filmmaker who is looking to make Joseph Kony, the violent leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Movement, famous – or rather, infamous.

This post is not intended to shower you with the horrors of Kony, his abduction of over 30,000 children or his advocacy of child soldiers. Rather, this post is meant to highlight the two-fold brilliance of the online campaign.

Invisible Children is an international campaign to stop the Kony problem, putting an end to Africa’s longest-standing armed conflict. Within 24 hours, a single day, the short film had over 4 million views. Currently, the link is closing in at 15 million. (more…)

Peer 2 Peer University is back again this month with some added bonuses. Early February, P2PU School of Ed eagerly announced their latest offerings – a new round of free, open-licensed professional learning groups meant specifically for educators.

Classes will begin on March 5^th and will explore a range of topics including:

• Student Grant Writing – Students will learn the grant-writing process
• Empower Your Personal Learning – For students and educators, this course unearths the different manners by which you can take control of your personal learning
• Writing and Inquiry in the Digital Age – Students will have the opportunity to join the National Writing Project
• Effective Use of Multimedia and Graphics – Learn to foster deeper learning through multimedia and graphics
• Global Classroom Collaboration Elementary and Secondary – Teachers from all around the world will talk over and design collaborations in order to bridge international classrooms
• Connected Learning with Youth Voices – A study group that encourages and helps teachers become accustomed to Youth Voices, a school-based social network (more…)

Dear Bon Education Team!

I wanted to wish you all a very happy new year and thank you for your hard work and dedication in 2011.

We are really excited to finally launch BB and Sam (our interactive digital literature app) in 2012 – that’s one of our big goals we have for this year. With all of your fabulous talents and skills I know we can make the final push these next two months towards a successful launch on the app store. We will also continue to grow and build our training and consulting business working with schools, teachers and students to empower and personalize their learning through technology.

I read an article in the NY Times this morning about the CEO of IBM.  He had these four questions that guided his management of IBM.  These are great reflection prompts, both from a company perspective as well as an individual perspective.  (link)

• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
• “Why would somebody work for you?”
• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

The answers to these questions are where we’re going with Bon Education.  It’s about focusing on the purpose and impact of the work we do. I trust that if we are happy with our answers to these questions the financial returns required to sustain and grow Bon Education will follow. (more…)