Posts Tagged ‘Educational software’

Soon after we completed our first round of beta testing with our very first version of DreamBox (think 40 games as compared to our current 350+), I attended an incredible conference called Dust or Magic, an annual Children’s New Media Design Institute, organized by Warren Buckleitner, editor of the Children’s Technology Review.

As a teacher I often used software in the classroom. Much of this software relied on me to determine the appropriate starting place in the curriculum.

Recently, a friend of a friend who had reviewed our offering wrote to me and said, "Overall I find the business model of a monthly charge very strange for a children's learning software. Usually one buys a book or a CD/DVD for a one time price and can use it indefinitely. DreamBox's offering basically means that now parents need to pay over and over again if their kids want to revisit lessons or if they are just slow learners. A more appropriate pricing model would be to sell the service per lesson or grade level. That would appeal a lot more to me. Think about it. I have to spend $100 for one year of service and after that I basically lose access to the learning tools unless I continue paying. For $100 each year I get many learning software on CD/DVDs or books and I can keep them forever. That is a very easy decision in my mind."

Edu-tainment was initially envisioned to be the perfect hybrid between education and entertainment. In the abstract, the idea that educational software could be equally effective and engaging remains a good one. Most edu-tainment companies, however, got the mixture wrong and thus never fully realized this promise.