by Lori Cunningham

Thank you to who?Comics for sponsoring this post and encouraging my child to read biographies in comic book form! Please click here to learn more about the app. And follow who? Comics on Twitter for updates.

While at a great Clever Girls Collective event, during BlogHer ’11 in August, I met with some folks from Podotree.  Podotree told me about a new app they were launching soon called Who?Comics.  Who? Comics is an iPad app that showcases biographies various influential leaders of today and yesterday but they do it in a unique way.  To capture kids’ interest, they wrote all of the content in cartoon form.  As a child reads the speech bubbles from various characters in the biography, they can better visualize and understand the personality and emotions of the people involved.

I knew this would be a perfect app for my 8-year-old daughter, who LOVES learning about famous people. Recently, when I was given the opportunity to review Who? Comics and I jumped at it.  I was pleased to see the biographies they have already compiled, namely:

Oprah Winfrey

Bill Gates

Hillary Clinton

Steven Spielberg

J.K. Rowling

Barack Obama

Warren Buffett

Stephen Hawking

Nelson Mandela

Jane Goodall

Louis Braille

Martin Luther King

Walt Disney

Nelson Mandela

and 14 more!

Here’s a brief video that gives you a glimpse on what the biographies look like and how they work:

I couldn’t wait to start reading some of the biographies with my daughter.  We learned that Bill Gates’ mind was a sponge and as an elementary student and he read his entire encyclopedia set.  He could memorize verses from the bible, after reading them only once!  He had an appetite for learning.  When his parents transferred him to a new school he was like a fish out of water.  He didn’t fit the mold of the popular kids.  But he found like-minded kids who were fascinated by computers.  It was at this school that Bill met Paul Allen.  Together they embarked on an adventure to learn all they could about computers and programming.  Both Bill and Paul would stay up all night coding games to play on the computer and learning how to code.  Bill envisioned that one day they would start-up a software company together.  And they did.

I have to say, seeing the funny cartoon expressions on the characters’ faces and how they react to things really adds to the story.  I think back to the many other biographies we’ve read with no pictures and how dry they can get sometimes.

 

Two days later we read the J.K. Rowling biography.  My daughter is a BIG fan of Harry Potter, in fact, we all are.  She has read the first three books…two times!  To our surprise, we learned that Rowling loved to spend time in the nearby church cemetery.  It was quiet there and she found the names on the tombstones so fascinating, some of which made it into her Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling’s mom passed her love for books onto her daughters.  J.K. Rowling couldn’t get enough of her books and she loved to write her own stories.  Her creative imagination was the impetus of many fun games she would invent for her sister and friends.  Rowling tried to take a traditional job route after school, but she’d often get distracted and begin writing stories.  She never lasted long at her jobs.  When she finally gave herself permission to write down her encompassing  thoughts about a wizard name Harry, she began to live.  Though her manuscript was turned down by numerous publishing companies, it only took one to say yes for her to realize her dream.

What I loved best about both biographies is that they taught my daughter that often our life-long passions are discovered during childhood and it reminded me to really

encourage my childrens’ interest and support them early on.  I also liked how that the life dream that Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling had as a child came true as they grew into adulthood.  These stories are teaching important lessons to my children…and to me.

The who? Comics app is available in the iTunes Store for $9.99 and includes two free biography comics – Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates.  Each additional book is $4.99 but you can buy collections (Activists, Politicians, Artists in sets of 6) for $9.99 each set.

Right now Podotree is offering the opportunity to buy the 29 book comic series for only $29.99, which is a fantastic deal since buying each of these books separately would equal $149.99.

 

 

 

 

Thank you again to who? Comics for sponsoring my post. Please click here to learn more about the app. Visit who? Comics for updates.

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by Lori Cunningham

VS.In previous articles, I reviewed the  Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″ and 10.1“.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the Tab and highly recommend one.  I have been asked many times, is a tablet worth investing in if you have s smartphone.  I have been using tablets for nearly a year now and this article points out the benefits of using a tablet over a smartphone.  However, let me make it clear that I do not believe a tablet can be used in place of a smartphone.  You still need both.

I have found that I use the tablet for most things except when 1.) I needed to call someone (most tablets don’t have phone service) and 2.) I wanted to be more discreet when checking e-mail.  Basically, it boils down to this.  Use a Tablet when you want the convenience of a lightweight computer (much lighter than laptops/netbooks) yet desire a larger screen.  The larger screen display is why you’ll favor a tablet over a smartphone.   Here are ways in which having a larger screen is preferrable:

1.  Watching Videos – the 7″ or 10″ screen is a welcome change from the 3.2″ or smaller screen on smartphone.  The videos are much more engaging and the lighting seems to be better.  Watching on a tablet makes movies more sociable since more than one person can watch the movie.

2. Reviewing and Making Appointments on Your Calendar – tablets are extremely helpful with appointment management.  During CES I had over 80 appointments to keep track of during the week.  The weekly view helped me to easily identify my upcoming appointments and possible openings for new appointments.  My tablet performed way better than my smartphone in this area.

3.  Responding to Texts/e-mail’s -  The SWYPE keyboard is much larger and I had a lot less texting/e-mail typing mistakes as a result.

4.  Reading Books on Kindle – hello?  Have you ever tried to read a book on your smartphone?  Using a tablet to read books allows for larger fonts and more words to be read on a page.  A tablet creates a more natural look-and-feel due to it’s closer size to a book.

5.  Playing Angry Birds…and Other Games – now two players can watch and play more easily when playing  games.  More people are involved and the game becomes more fun.  With a larger screen, you really get a sense at how angry those birds really are!  Angry Birds is a fun free app in the Android Market (free) and iTunes Store (free-$.99) that is a fun addictive game that has gained widespread popularity.

6.  Price Comparison Shopping – boy I wish I had a tablet when my husband and I were shopping for a new BBQ.  First of all, you can search online for the brand and features of the product you’re looking at in the store.  Secondly, you can use a price comparison service like PriceGrabber.com, Shopzilla.com, etc. to easily identify whether the price of the product in the store is a decent price compared to online prices.  Having a big touchscreen with the ability to easily magnify products features and pictures make it easier to compare products.

7.  Viewing and Reading Websites – this just makes sense…whenever you have a larger surface to read from, it’s easier to read and you’re more likely to read for longer.

8.  Viewing Pictures – who doesn’t like to see pictures of their baby on a bigger screen to bring out the baby’s personality?  With a larger viewing screen sharing your pictures is sociable and fun.

9.  Using GPS – you can read the screen easier and touch the buttons you mean to touch more precisely to get the information you want to see.  More people in the car can see the map which helps answer the question, “are we there yet?”

10.  Controlling Your  TV – as I mentioned in The Top 6 Product Trends of CES 2011, one of the major tech trends is that the smartphone is in control.  While this is still true due to the larger number of people who have a smartphone over a tablet, a tablet makes this control much more convenient.  A larger screen is easier for family members to type in shows, channels, or movies they are interested in.  With the right software, you can see all or most of your connected devices on one screen.  You can control more features of a TV, receiver, or information from your computer more easily on one to a few screens on the tablet versus 5+ screens on a smaller smartphone screen.

A Mom’s Perspective

Do I think tablets are worth the money?  Yes.  Do I think they will be used as extensively as your smartphone?  Well, no, not right away.  I love the sociability and connectiveness tablets bring to a household.  Playing games on a tablet  are more sociable.  Pictures can be shared very easily or the tablet can be docked and used as picture frame.

You can now download apps to help you control your TV, receiver, cable DVR recordings, pool settings, music around the house, content from your computer, lock your doors, change your thermostat, see when your kids get home via your connected cameras, etc.  There are so many exciting things becoming available through the use of our smartphones, PC’s, and tablets.

With over 80 tablets introduced this year and more in the pipeline, the iPad is no longer the only contender.  With over 300,000 apps available in the iTunes store and 100,000 apps in the Android Market, there are plenty of resources to to take advantage of with your tablet.

I thoroughly enjoyed using a tablet and I am sold on the benefits of using a tablet…inside my home and outside of it.  I only wish the tablet would be phone capable so I wouldn’t have to carry both my phone and tablet on short out-of-the-home stints. .

For those of you with a tablet, please leave us a comment telling us why you love your tablet!

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by Jason Tucker

New Scholastic Technology

I’ve been reading Scholastic books and attending Scholastic Book Fairs as far back as I can remember so I was excited to review two Scholastic “Touch & Tilt” books on the iPad.  My son is an emerging reader so we are trying to give him high interest books to keep his attention.  Reading on the iPad has been a great tool to keep his interest and it’s fun for him at the same time.

Scholastic is a premier name in children’s books so my expectations were high when I reviewed “Go, Clifford, Go!”,  based on the book series by Norman Bridwell and “I Love You Through and Through”, based on the book by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak.  I was not disappointed!   Scholastic brought life to two very different stories and I think you will agree that this technology gives parents more valuable options when it comes to educating our children.

Go, Clifford, Go!

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