educational
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Google: Chromebooks now serve web-happy students in over 500 European, US school districts
Whatever you think of the latest round of Chromebooks, school districts have clearly latched on to existing models. Over 500 school districts across Europe and the US are currently deploying the Google-powered laptops for learning the web way. Specialized web app packs and that rare leasing model are already keeping the material relevant and the hardware evergreen, but new certification for US ready-for-college criteria will go a long way towards making sure principals everywhere take a shine to Chrome OS in the future. That still leaves a lot of schools going the more traditional Mac or Windows PC route, with the occasional tablet strategy thrown in; regardless, we're sure Google doesn't mind taking any noticeable chunk of the market in a relatively brief period of time. We'll see if there's more reasons for Mountain View to get excited in a few days.
iLearnWith is an early childhood education program for the iPad
There are a wide range of educational apps in the App Store. Some titles like Tapfish are fun, while others like the iLearnWith program from Tribal Nova are geared for learning. The thing that sets iLearnWith apart from its competition is the ability to set up profiles for multiple children and track their progress across more than one app. iLearnWith is more than just a few loosely-associated apps with profiles. It's an iPad-based learning environment with several different apps that interact and share data with each other. The apps are geared towards the younger set (ages 3 to 6) and focus on basic skills like letters, phonics, and addition. There are also a few titles that explore science by introducing topics like animals and weather. Each educational app has a different theme and tests a different set of skills. There's i Learn With Poko: Seasons and Weather! HD which covers weather; i Learn With Boing: Ice Land Adventures! HD which focuses on letters phonics and spelling; i Learn With Savanna Adventures! HD which mixes animals with math; i Learn With the Mighty Jungle: Animals! HD which showcases animals and i Learn With Poko: Fun Counting and Addition! HD which introduces math. When your child is done learning, they can open the Planet Boing app, which offers kids a break from drills and lets them dress-up and play with a variety of cartoon aliens. When you launch one of the iLearnWith apps, you are greeted with an animated launch screen that matches the theme of the app. From here, you can start a lesson, select a child's profile, view your child's progress or browse other iLearnWith apps that are installed on your device. I was impressed with the sharing and tracking that exists between the apps when you use them with an iLearnWith account (available for free). I was able to launch one app, pull up my child's progress records from all the apps and then jump to another app to begin lessons. It was seamless to move from one app to another. I've used four of the apps in the series, and each app is colorful and engaging. The characters are cute and there's enough animation to keep your child focused on the activity. Instructions are very clear and tell your child exactly what they need to do at each screen. If your child forgets, there's always a character like Mister Murphy the Monkey hanging around to help. There's also background music and sound effects in the apps, but they add to the experience and are not overbearing. Children get positive reinforcement and earn rewards when they answer correctly. When a mistake is made, a sad noise gives mild correction and the child is prompted to try again. The reward system gives your child medals and trinkets that they can use in Planet Boing, an app within the series that's a more of a digital playground than a learning app. For parents or teachers, iLearnWith has section dedicated to tracking your child's progress in not just one, but all the iLearnWith apps. When you open the progress hub, you can view the learning activities for each app and the level your child has completed. At the top is the current app and its statistics, which in the detailed view can include the number of times the child completed an activity, their success rate and the average success rate of the group. At the bottom of the progress section are the other apps and their completion level. Parents can tap an activity, like adding up to 10 in the Addition! app, and that app will launch. Tribal Nova, the company behind the iLearnWith apps, is no stranger to early childhood education and it shows. The apps are filled with progress tracking features for parents and fun for kids who want to learn. You can read more about iLearnWith at the company's website and check out their other work which includes PBS KIDS PLAY!, Kid's CBC Wonder World, and Bayam. The iLearnWith apps are available in the iOS App Store for US$2.99 each. Select titles in the series are on sale now for a limited time.
Educational app series Motion Math reaches one million download milestone
We often hear about games reaching one million downloads, but, today, educational app Motion Math announced it has reached this notable milestone, too. Motion Math develops four math-oriented titles for the iPad and the iPhone including its self-titled debut, Motion Math. All four titles (Motion Math, Motion Math Zoom, Motion Math: Hungry Fish and Motion Math:Wings) contributed to this million downloads milestone. Interest is growing in educational apps, and this is evident in Motion Math's download stats. In its press release announcing its one million downloads, the company said half of these downloads have come in the last four months. And this is only the beginning -- as more schools adopt iPads, the download tally for Motion Math and other apps in the educational category is bound to increase. Besides its one million downloads, Motion Math also used this occasion to announce its next app, Motion Math: Hungry Guppy. This title is Motion Math's first app aimed at pre-schoolers and is expected to land in the iOS App Store this summer. [Via Motion Math] Show full PR text Motion Math Reaches One Million iOS App Downloads Fun Math App Company Announces New Preschool Adding Game for Kids San Francisco (June 13, 2012) -- Motion Math, the pioneer of fun, interactive mobile math games, has surpassed more than one million downloads of its four award-winning titles, Motion Math HD (fraction estimation), Motion Math Zoom (number line and place value), Motion Math: Hungry Fish (arithmetic) and Motion Math: Wings (multiplication). Half of those downloads have come in the last four months and all four apps have reached Top 10 or Top 5 recognition in Apple's App Store Education Category. Motion Math's fraction game was the subject of the first ever experiment on an iPad app, with research showing a 15% improvement in fractions estimation and a 10% improvement in math attitudes. Their latest game, Motion Math: Wings, features six different visual forms of multiplication, helping students build their understanding of the concept. Recognizing the importance of fundamental math skills for children's success, parents and teachers have downloaded one million Motion Math games, turning screen time into learning time. To address the needs of families with children as young as two, the company today also announced its first game for preschoolers, Motion Math: Hungry Guppy, the prequel to Motion Math: Hungry Fish. "We're excited that Motion Math can meet the learning needs of families with young children," said Gabriel Adauto, Motion Math co-founder. "By starting with dot visuals and slowly introducing numbers, Hungry Guppy helps preschoolers build an intuitive sense for addition." In the Top 5 game Motion Math: Hungry Fish, players find the many ways to create a specific sum, using the touchscreen to pinch two numbers together and instantly add them. Motion Math: Hungry Guppy has the same engaging gameplay, but uses a mix of dots and numbers to allow kids as young as two to learn their numbers and basic addition. The Motion Math: Hungry Guppy math game will be available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch later this summer. Both Motion Math: Wings (http://bit.ly/mmwings) and Motion Math: Hungry Fish (http://bit.ly/hungryfish) are available now as free downloads on the App Store. Motion Math creates fun learning games that let kids play with numbers. The company's fractions app, conceived at the Stanford School of Education won a Serious Play Gold Medal. A rigorous efficacy study - the first done on an iPad educational app - found the game improved test scores 15% and attitudes towards fractions by 10%. Subsequent games - Motion Math Zoom, Motion Math: Hungry Fish, and Motion Math: Wings – have received rave reviews, promotion by Apple, and #5 rankings in the Education category. Motion Math is backed by a world-class group of angel investors, including Mitch Kapor, Dave McClure, and Mike Wood (the founder of LeapFrog), and has been featured in TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Wired, WSJ, Forbes, PBS NewsHour, Fast Company and the NYT. Most importantly: kids, parents, and teachers love Motion Math games. To learn more, visit http://www.motionmathgames.com.
OLPC to bring Little Pim language teaching videos to XO laptop, underprivileged children
One Laptop Per Child is tag-teaming it up with foreign language learning company Little Pim to teach English to underprivileged children. The initiative could help to blur the line between work and fun and lead to future opportunities for kids in an ever-increasingly global economy where English is the lingua franca of many multinational groups and companies. Getting educational videos onto OLPC's affordable XO laptop is consistent with the new partnerships' philosophy that "learning should be a joyous experience and that children learn best when learning and play are seamless activities." There's no word on when the package deal will be available, but we'll be on the lookout for further info. Full PR after the break.
Google World Wonders Project takes you to Earth's treasures in glorious Street View vision (video)
Google has already been taking us to exotic locations through Street View, but now it's hoping to enshrine the most famous places on Earth through the World Wonders Project, one car (or trike) at a time. A total of 132 sites, ranging from natural landmarks like Yosemite to much more synthetic constructions like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, have both an on-the-ground view as well as 3D renderings, videos and loads of history from UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund, among others. The educational bent is so conspicuous that Google is offering up some of the content in downloadable bundles for schools along with the usual web-based look. All of it promises a much more fascinating, hands-on approach than a dry textbook, and it's a unique way of bringing encyclopedic knowledge to an era of Chromebooks and the cloud.
TED-Ed website launches in beta, lets teachers customize video lessons
Last month, TED announced its new education initiative -- fittingly named TED-Ed -- with a YouTube channel showcasing teachers' lessons presented as animated videos. Today, the program moved forward, as TED opened up a beta version of a website meant to complement those lessons. Though there are plenty of study aides here, ed.ted.com is really about the grown-ups on the other side of the classroom. The site lets teachers with a TED account "flip" videos from TED-Ed and YouTube -- i.e., customize them to include multiple-choice and open-answer questions and links to additional info on a topic. Currently there are 62 videos and 238 "flips" available for viewing, but TED is gearing up for a full launch to be timed with the new school year in September.
Daily iPad App: The Little Girl Who Could Fly is a delightful interactive book for children
Today we are stepping outside our typical app reviews for the iPad and looking at an interactive book. Because of their interactive elements, these titles stray over into the app category. This particular title, The Little Girl Who Could Fly from YellowPixie, is an animated, illustrated adapatation of Karl Capek's children's book, The Man Who Knew How to Fly. The digital book opens with an illustrated page that has the book's credits, a start reading button and two toggles for controlling the background sound and the narration. The narration is pleasant and is an excellent accompaniment for younger children. Each page of the book has navigation arrows that let you move back and forward through the pages. There's also a home button and a toggle to turn off the background sound on every page. The 20 or so illustrations throughout the book are light-hearted and colorful. They are animated and move along with the story. Each page is filled with adventure as there are three to six illustrated items that'll move or make a noise when your child taps on them. My favorite is the teacher's hat that'll do a flip when you tap on it. Your child can also tilt the iPad and control the main character when she is flying. There are also two mini-games within the book. One will let your child color along with the lead character and another is a dress-up game that the little girls in the audience will enjoy. The games pop up in the middle of the story, but they fit in with the story line. As a result, the games add to the story and only minimally distract from it. The storyline about a girl who proves she can fly is fun. My children read the book, both with me and by themselves, several times. It's definitely geared towards the younger set, but it's not an early reader like See Jack Run. It's a storybook with a delightful tale that's perfect for a parent or an older sibling to read to their three to six-year-old. Set aside some time when you first read the book to your child as some of the words are long. You may have to explain the meaning of words like delegation and 90-degree angle, before you let them loose on their own. You can download The Little Girl Who Could Fly from iTunes for US$4.99.
Barobo's Mobot goes up for pre-order, slinks toward your impressionable children (video)
In what may be the first notable instance of a product actually losing the "i" in favor of building out its own persona, Barobo's iMobot is not only not going by Mobot, but it's also up for pre-order. The modular robotics platform can be claimed for $269.95 (with extension plates and the like available as optional extras), and we're told by the company that these will be on the move by August at the latest. Moreover, a grant has been secured to provide "at least $500,000 over the next two years to Barobo, with potential for up to another $500,000 in matching funds if the company can make sales and attract venture capital." Folks involved with the project are hoping to see Mobot used as a tool for teaching robotics as early as third grade, and given the choice of tinkering with one of these or fiddling with a TI-83 Plus... well, you know. For those unaware of Mobot's potential, head on past the break for a freshly cut video.
Daily iPad App: Murky Reef is a fun, underwater game that'll improve math and language skills
There are apps that teach your kids math and apps that teach your kids language arts and then there are some like Murky Reef by Frolyc that teach them both. Murky Reef targets the younger elementary group with a series of apps that teaches math, English, critical thinking and logic. All these skills are presented in an entertaining, underwater-themed game. For this review, I am focusing on the Murky Reef app for first and second graders which has both language arts and math. Murky Reef has an underwater theme that stars Puff, a puffer fish. The puffer fish is slowly being pursued by Ogee the shark and must be saved by your child's correct answers. Children are presented with five problems and each correct answer will help the puffer fish grow. When the fish gets big enough, he can spew hot lava on the shark and chase the predator away. There's also a variety of underwater sea creatures which your child can earn. The creatures are helpful as each one has a different weapon that can temporarily push the shark away. The Murky Reef version that I tested was broken down into 22 different sections that cover subtraction from 1-20, spelling, addition, sentence formation, number patterns and more. There's even a few quiz sections that cover a topic like sharks. After reading a passage, children must answer a series of questions that test their reading comprehension. Between the math, grammar and reading, the breadth of information covered in this app is impressive. The graphics are colorful, the sound effects whimsical and the overall feel of the app is fun. My kids enjoyed the storyline and loved it when the puffer fish spit out lava on the shark. Besides learning about ABCs and 123s, the app also has tidbits of information on the undersea animals. With your reading help, your child can learn about the octopus, sea stars, sharks, puffer fish and more. From a parent's point of view, the iPad app has one feature that most apps overlook -- support for multiple children. I have more than one child and each one can setup their own profile. They can choose their profile and all their achievements will be saved separately. Parents can even pull up an individual reports that keep track of each child's progress. The Murky Reef:1st - 2nd Grade Reading, Science & Math app that I reviewed costs US$4.99. With 22 different exercises, progress reports and multiple profile support, it's well worth the cost.
Minds of Modern Mathematics from IBM available for iPad
Math is one of those disciplines that has a long and colorful history. If you want to learn more about the great math minds of the past, you should download Minds of Modern Mathematics from IBM. The multimedia-rich app is a timeline that shows the history of math from 1000 BC to the 1950s. The iPad app is inspired by a 50-foot long wall tribute to math that was on display during the IBM-sponsored Mathematica exhibition held in 1961. The original wall tribute was designed by celebrated American designers, Charles and Ray Eames. The app has three core views that let you see the development of math over the millennia, browse exciting events that happened in the last century or swipe through a 3D chronological view that lets you walk through math history one event at a time. The app is filled with detailed biographies about famous mathematicians and has almost 500 high-resolution photos of historic artifacts. The Minds of Modern Mathematics is available for free from the iOS App Store. It'll run on an iPad with iOS 3.2 or later.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Burst!
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Josh Hughes of Team Kaizen delves into the fun side of education, and the educational side of fun with Burst!, a PC/Android title that mixes explosions with science. What's your game called and what's it about?Our game is called Burst! and it's meant to be the indie rhythm game for indie musicians! In Burst!, players queue up and detonate fireworks to the beat of music. We've also integrated a tad bit of STEM design (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) into Burst!: Players unlock different elements off of the Periodic Table as they advance, which enables them to make new colors of fireworks -- this is how real fireworks get colors.Burst! is currently in a limited-functionality Flash-powered beta on the Android Market and it is available to play online.How can video games help students learn more about science and technology? What advantages does gaming offer teachers?Games naturally offer a "safe to fail" environment. Meaning, if you're testing out a physics-related problem, if something goes wrong you can asses it, start the problem over again and tackle it with the newfound knowledge from the failed attempt. This means users are engaged to solve problems instead of being presented with the fallacy that they are "too stupid" to solve them. I believe that, in true-blue educational settings, some of the most powerful game tools come from these user-generated-content games. This is because they not only can be used to teach information, but they directly engage users to go into create mode and experiment with the knowledge.It isn't something you regurgitate on a test anymore; it becomes key information in solving a problem within a game you care about. This relates directly to the test group of kids we are working with at a local grade school. These kids (eight of them, four boys and four girls from grades fourth to sixth) are learning STEM one meeting a week and learning LittleBigPlanet and game design two meetings a week. Within a very short period, they were asking their teachers if they could stay after school to learn, coming in on vacations and skipping class parties so they could engage in learning more.On their own accord, without teacher prodding, they asked if they could use school computers to build a shared-knowledge database on the school's network so their levels are as historically and scientifically accurate as possible. They've commandeered white boards and begun drawing out details of their levels, including time periods they need to research to make them perfect. And this is only a test group!I believe that these kinds of games will have an increasingly important role to play in education because of this kind of engagement; the learned knowledge means something and directly plays into self-empowerment and self-expression, so retention goes through the roof.
NASA debuts two new educational games for iOS, Facebook
NASA is no stranger to apps, but the space agency is branching out further into some new territory with its two latest offerings: a pair of educational games. The first is Sector 33, an air traffic control simulator for iOS devices that certainly won't be confused with Flight Control, but which NASA hopes will help teach math and possibly get folks interested in aviation. Those who prefer their games a bit more casual can also now try out NASA's very first multiplayer Facebook game, Space Race Blast Off, which tests folks' knowledge of various space-related topics (and is considerably more challenging than it first appears). Additional details and the games themselves can be found at the source links below.[Thanks, Mo]
Lenovo announces brainier Classmate+ PC, heads to top of the class
Kids have been honing their computer smarts on Intel-based Classmate PCs for a few years now, and Lenovo's just sewn its name inside the collar of its second generation of student-friendly lappies. Based on the chip maker's "Learning Series," Lenovo's new boy comes in clamshell and convertible flavors, and brings an Atom N2600 processor, a max of 2GB DDR3 memory and up to a 320GB -- or 32GB solid state -- storage along to class. It'll launch in uniform grey (like the first generation pictured), but orders that meet the minimum requirement can choose to splash a little color on top. As before, these things are designed to handle the daily rigors dished out by a nine-year-old, hence a new rotating hinge on the convertible, strengthened and designed to last "tens of thousands of cycles." Should be enough to see you into adulthood then. It's available to institutions as of this month, but if you want to know more, hit the PR after the break.
Beta $25 Raspberry Pi computers fetching exorbitant sums (for charity) on eBay
Those diminutive $25 Raspberry Pi computers are finally set to launch later this month -- if you absolutely can't wait to get your grubby paws on one, however, good news: you can pick one up early at auction, if you're willing to pay a little extra. The foundation behind the ultra-budget educational computers is giving buyers a head start, listing beta boards up on eBay. At present, the top spot belongs to beta board number 10, which is currently cruising at around £2,100.00, with about two days left at auction. If you're lucky, however, the low-end number five, which is currently priced at around £620, shouldn't increase too much in the next four days or so. And look on the bright side, all the money is going to charity here, so you can't feel too bad about yourself. Right?
YouTube launches education-only site, won't teach evolution of dance (video)
The bandages are barely off after a recent nip-tuck and the internet's biggest time sink is going under the knife again with its new YouTube EDU initiative. Imagine your favorite video site with all the fun stuff stripped off -- it's essentially that. Gone are comments and related videos, and all the non brain-enhancing stuff, leaving just what's good for the grey matter. Why? Well, in the VHS era teachers had control, but now it's a minefield. With its wealth of knowledge, YouTube is an obvious choice for educators, but with so many ways to get RickRolled, or catch-up on the latest keyboard cat, pupils' attention can be lost in seconds. The project has content provided by over 600 educational outlets such as TED and the Smithsonian, with subjects broken down into more than 300 teacher-friendly playlists. We're not sure if "national constitutions"is going to be one of them, but hit the promo video after the break to find out more.
Daily iPad App: Looking Glass
Created by Project Comet, Looking Glass is an iPad app for children that's full of short videos about how things work or how they are made. The app ships with handful of videos for you to preview and over 100 are available via a monthly subscription. The subscription costs US$3.99 a month and provides you with 5 new videos every two weeks. Rather than releasing them all at once, the five clips are rolled out on a regular basis so kids can look forward to fresh new content. The videos are short, about three to five minutes, and they cover a variety of topics that are cool to kids. One demo video shows how an ice cream sandwich is made and another video gives kids a glimpse into the world of RC model airplanes. The videos are well-done for what they are. They are highlight videos meant for young children. They are colorful and lively, but are not a crash course in that particular subject. The ice cream sandwich video, for example, shows the process of making a commercial ice cream sandwich from the kitchen to an ice cream shop counter. There's no narration; it's straight video with music in the background. It reminds me of the TV series "How It's Made," but shorter and without commentary. One drawback to the app is its lack of interactivity. It's educational TV for kids delivered via the iPad. The only tapping a child does is when they start and stop a video. The videos are probably best used as a springboard for discussion about a topic. I could see myself watching the ice cream video with my 4-year old and then taking her in the kitchen and making one ourselves. The concept is interesting, though, and for $3.99 per month is very reasonably priced. You can grab the Looking Glass app from the App Store for free and check it out. An in-app purchase will let you sign-up for a subscription and you cancel it at any time.
PBS Kids launches augmented reality game for iOS, says all the cool kids are counting sushi
It's official: Kids today have way cooler toys than you did when you were growing up. PBS Kids has just outed its first augmented reality mobile app for iOS -- a game called Fetch! Lunch Rush that aims to take the sting out of learning to do addition and subtraction in your head. If you're up on PBS' children's programming (and why wouldn't you be?), you'll recognize that pooch Ruff Ruffman as the game show host in the animated show Fetch! Here, he's a legendary movie director trying to make sure there's enough sushi for his movie crew (grown-up problems, right?). That's where the augmented reality comes in: bits of raw fish floating around screen. Though it's worth noting that this isn't augmented reality in the strictest sense of the term, in that you have to print out game cards to use with your iPhone or iPod touch's camera. The free app requires an iPhone or iPod touch (fourth-gen or later) or an iPad / iPad 2 running iOS 4.0. While we can't say we're a bit envious of those six- to eight-year-olds with their very own iPod touches, but then again, will they ever know the sheer joy of hunting in Oregon Trail over and over again? %Gallery-139344%
See Rome as it is and as it was
Rome MVR (mixed virtual reality) is a very cool and innovative iPhone app that allows you to see views of the Roman Coliseum today, and -- with a tap on the screen -- also shows you 3D computer renderings of the location as it was at the peak of the Roman Empire. If you are actually at the location, the app activates the iPhone camera, engaging what the developers call the 'Time Leap' system so you see the Coliseum as it was. Move left and right, up and down, and your 3D perspective changes. If you aren't in Rome, you get current photos, and you can still move your iPhone to survey the site. The app is free, but you only get the Coliseum to explore. You can also check out the Roman Forum and Imperial Forums, but those locations are an in-app purchase of US $1.99. If you are actually in Rome, an onscreen tool will help you walk to vantage points that exactly match the renderings. You can watch the live view fade into the ancient view. There is also narration about the sites you are looking at. Even if you are looking at the pre-loaded images, you can still rotate your view and watch the transition between old and new. It's impressive. I never expected a cell phone to become a compelling educational tool, but I'm seeing more and more of that and Rome MVR is a perfect example. The developers are working on a similar app for Egypt, and I could see uses for this technology on Civil War battlefields, the beaches at Normandy, or a host of historical sites anywhere in the world. This is a very clever app, and I'd suggest you try the free version to get an idea how it works. I was drawn into the content, so I grabbed the Roman Forum to explore as well. If you'd like to see the app in action check out the Rome MVR video to get a better idea how Rome MVR works. Rome MVR runs on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (not full screen) and requires iOS3 or above. %Gallery-136280%
Switched On: A toy for the smartphone gaming generation
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. The first thing worth noting about Sifteo Cubes -- which recently became available for pre-order at $149 for a starter pack of three that should start shipping this month -- is that they are not geometrically true to their name. Their square surfaces sit atop depths that are less than half their side length, so even stacking two Cubes won't produce three-dimensional symmetry. They are a little smaller than the game pieces from the much more limited and less expensive Scrabble Flash digital letter-arranging game that was a hit last holiday season. The pieces fit comfortably between two fingers for easy gripping, flipping and rearranging, which you'll need to do a lot of in their various games. They are also a good size to substitute for many handheld playthings, reminding one of overstuffed Mahjongg tiles but also akin to shrunken toddlers' alphabet blocks or playing cards. The sides and back are otherwise nondescript except for a set of contacts on their rear used for charging. Sifteo Cubes are charged via their tray, which showcases them through a translucent plastic top with room for three more Cubes at $45 each. Different games derive different levels of benefit from having more than three tiles, but most work fine with the starter set.
Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond developer talks educational mission
Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond has been in the news a lot lately, but just who are the folks behind the educational MMO from NASA and Project Whitecard? A new piece at Gamasutra sheds a bit of light on that as well as a few more details about the project as a whole. "I'm originally a developer," says Project Whitecard CEO Khal Shariff. "I thought, 'oh, I could be a developer for the rest of my life, or I could start my own company.'" That company has some pretty lofty goals for its first MMO, including reaching out to millions of kids worldwide and getting them interested in STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). "We are dedicated to using game technology to do things that, when somebody interacts with the game, it maybe leaves the world better or leaves somebody smarter," Shariff says.
