]]> http://acoco.com/?feed=rss2&p=188 0 http://acoco.com/?p=133 http://acoco.com/?p=133#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:41:07 +0000 acoco http://acoco.com/?p=133 The evil Wizard has kidnapped the Princess and stolen the royal treasures! Only a true math Hero will have the powers of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division needed to overcome the monsters and obstacles that guard the Princess. Do you have what it takes?

Math Kingdom challenges players to solve math problems and write the answers on the walls that block the way. With a sophisticated handwriting recognition program, writing on the walls is like casting magical spells! It’s a fantastic and engaging way to practice math!

-> Go to the Appstore

PennyMe! is like having a handful of coins! Count them, slide them around, guess the amounts. With the PennyMe Quiz and Count games, you’ll have fun practicing simple math skills while learning about U.S. coins.

With true-to-life coin images and sounds, PennyMe games simulate real-life situations and foster quick math skills. See how fast you can calculate with coins! How many tasks can you get right in a row?

School kids will gain confidence using coins.  Visitors to the U.S. can use PennyMe! to become familiar with the U.S. currency. It’s also great for improving addition and subtraction skills!

Whether you’re a child or someone new to the U.S., PennyMe will help you learn and use U.S. coins!

Here’s a tip from a mother, Sarah, who plays the app with her four-year old daughter: “I like the experience to be as interactive and well-rounded as possible, so before speech recognition is active, Libby touches the vehicles to make them keep moving and I ask her questions about the scene: “Is it day or night?” “Where’s the tree?” “What color is the car?” Also, because she’s eager to speak, she often says the vehicle name before speech recognition is activated in Advanced Play mode, so I point to the “Say it!” bubble to help her with timing. This isn’t necessary in the Basic Play mode, which rewards her with animation no matter when she says the word.” Thanks to Sarah and Libby for these great tips!

It was great to see kids playing Play ‘n’ Say Vehicles! Older kids will challenge themselves with Advanced Play, which features speech recognition. Basic Play allows younger kids to also enjoy the success animations and feedback. It’s so cute how Hannah notices the octopus that swims by the submarine!

The great news today is that our first application, Play ‘n’ Say Vehicles, is now available on iTunes! We’re excited about the app’s innovative speech recognition feature and we’re really looking forward to feedback from parents like you!

It was great to watch kids testing the launch version in the past weeks. Kids love to explore, so they were excited by the different scenes and vehicles they could get to know with Play ‘n’ Say Vehicles! They were also really interested in what would happen when they said the vehicle name right. Positive feedback – fun animations, cheering voices – is so important for a motivating experience! That’s one of the reasons we decided to include a Basic Mode in the launch version of the Play ‘n’ Say Vehicles – we wanted the younger kids to also be encouraged by the animations and positive feedback. It’s definitely something we’ll include in sequel applications.

We were also really pleased to see the different ways parents can get involved when playing the app. One parent noticed the variations in day and night scenes and decided to make a game of it: for each scene she asked her child, “Is it day or night?” Her daughter was then not only excited about the next vehicle, she was also excited about what she could notice about the context!

For kids, every scene is a world to explore and a chance to learn. They’ll have hours of fun in the world of vehicles and will look forward to the exciting themes of our sequel applications!