| In our quest to find online educational games and | | | | Educational websites for kids need to be well |
| learning activities for kids in kindergarten, | | | | designed for easy kid-friendly usage, and have the |
| preschool and first grades, we did a detailed study | | | | ability to engage young kids without the parents |
| to see how well they fulfill parental expectations | | | | necessarily having to babysit them all the time. |
| and needs. Our findings show significant gaps, | | | | What do most educational web sites offer? |
| indicating challenges and new opportunities for | | | | To our surprise, our research showed that most |
| online educational websites for kids. | | | | kids education web sites fail to meet the above, |
| What do parents actually want? | | | | rather basic expectations. We found a large |
| Earlier surveys have shown that parents generally | | | | number of websites offering online educational |
| want their children to get used to computers at a | | | | games, activities and content in a highly |
| young age, but not get addicted to the same. | | | | unorganized manner without any standardization. |
| Parents expect children's websites to be | | | | Each site had its own content and navigational |
| informational, easy to use, and suitable for kids of | | | | structure, requiring kids to read and understand |
| varying ages. They look for games and activities | | | | instructions on the screen, making it mandatory |
| that teach the kids the essential concepts of early | | | | for an adult to help and supervise. Typically, most |
| childhood education, such as, numbers, alphabets, | | | | games are not age specific and unintuitive in their |
| phonics, analytical skills etc. They also look for | | | | design. Large number of games relied on kid's |
| online stories, rhymes and other entertaining | | | | hand-eye coordination, and did nothing in terms of |
| content. Studies have shown it to be highly | | | | helping them learn a new concept. |
| effective, if the kids are taught in a subtle and | | | | Even the more education-oriented websites, |
| entertaining manner, without giving them a | | | | actually do not 'teach' or explain concepts to the |
| burdened feeling that they need to learn. Such a | | | | kids. They pose questions in a game format that |
| fun learning approach goes a long way in | | | | mainly 'test' what the kids already know. Teaching |
| addressing their short attention spans, and it is | | | | requires audio-visual content that explain the 'why' |
| quite effective in motivating kids to learn. | | | | and 'how' of each topic in an age-specific manner. |
| Of course, in today's scenario, most parents are | | | | This is one of the biggest shortcomings of most |
| busy and find little time to sit along with their kids | | | | of the web sites for early childhood education. |
| in front of the computer on a regular basis. | | | | |