Smartphone Smart Kid

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Whether you like it or not, smartphones are invading the fabric of society, and they’re slowly permeating into every household, yours included.

With this inevitable eventuality, one might wonder how and why this change is occurring, and while we’re certainly not here to comment on both these issues, we can certainly discuss its repercussions, its ripples throughout the fabric, so to speak. And for Indian households, what better an issue to warrant any sort of acceptance and serious consideration than the prospects of a better education.
With smartphones, it’s entirely easy for kids to grasp on to fundamental concepts — counting, the alphabet, colour and shape recognition, spatial awareness etc. In many ways, going interactive is not just going bold or experimental, it is going smart, going productive, going right. What’s also entirely possible, with very little input or manpower, is getting this content to reach a much wider audience than possible, with the low-cost devices in the market. This sudden flood of the education ecosystem in the entire country presents another issue, one that is easy to alleviate — that of language localisation.
With the apps and services localised into regional languages, kids can not only learn well, they can learn it the way they most efficiently can... in their mother tongue, their first language. All of this presents incredible opportunities for primary education and literacy in the country in the long run; and there are initiatives like Sesame Workshop India launching renowned apps like Galli Galli Sim Sim (the Indian adoption of Sesame Street) — Bharat ka Bag and Grover ka Number Special for Windows and Nokia Symbian^3 phones.
The apps, Bharat ka Bag and Grover ka Number Special include original Sesame Street video content and encourage visual distinction, counting, and number recognition, with a choice of English and one of five different local languages: Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Dutch, and German. The Apps will be available in over 40 countries in both their national languages and English. In India, both Bharat ka Bag and Grover ka Number Special will be available in Hindi and English. They are being launched at a special introductory sale price of `5 and `55 each, from the Microsoft Marketplace and Nokia Store for Windows or Nokia Symbian^3 Phones, or at www.windowsphone.com/ [2]
marketplace and store.ovi.com. Regular prices of `15 and `160 each will apply after this temporary introductory period.
This sounds like a very positive step, indeed. One of the many that this country needs.

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