From its inception edu-tainment was envisoned as the melding of education and entertainment. The concept of creating educational software, that is as effective as it is engaging, is laudable.
Descent
However, the reality is that for the most part, the edu-tainment landscape had become a vast wasteland, littered with video games sprinkled with little educational content and boring animated worksheet that children won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Game makers aspired to create of immersive interactive worlds, but these often let children gravitate to the activities they prefer, without ensuring that competency is met in all grade specific focal points. As time passed, parents caught on to the insubstantial educational blather. They recognized that the products, that claimed to be different, were falling into the same tired old model of drill-based lessons. They began to see that edu-tainment had become little more than a pale shadow of “real” entertainment software.
Flee or Perish
In this dessicated environment, some companies withered and died, while others dropped the educational elements from their products altogether. In the midst of the segment reorganization or purge, the chatter lessened, the din diminished, and some of the dust cleared. It was in the space that DreamBox Learning appeared.
There Is a Time for All Things…
For DreamBox Learning the time was right. The level of technology in the average home and the speed of the Internet connection was right. The technological underpinnings that support our everyday Internet experience were sufficient… DreamBox Learning was not going to be a nondescript edu-tainment company whose products were neither fish nor fowl, neither educational nor entertaining, but was going to create something that delivered on the promises made in the edu-tainment era.
Hatchling
In early 2009 DreamBox Learning introduced its K-2 Math service…
Why math? The folks at DreamBox Learning say, “We chose mathematics as our first product to meet the urgent need to build early math literacy skills for our children. We started with the early years because all math builds on previously learned concepts, and we want to offer math from the ground up.”
DreamBox K-2 Math is an online video adventure that presents fun math games in a colorful cartoon world. Children can choose from thirty-six avatars to represent themselves on screen. They can also choose from four themed environments (dinosaurs, pet, pirates, and pixies), each with eight stories and hundreds of activities to engage your child.
DreamBox K-2 Math is a different beast on many levels, both educational and technological. Most parents don’t care about the technology, except that it delivers on what was promised, but in the educational foundation, they have a keen interest. DreamBox K-2 Math boasts a significant K-2 curriculum based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards. K-2 Math adapts… it learns from your child’s responses and creates truly differentiated instruction and lesson pathways.
