Child Research Net SYMPOSIUM 98 MaMaMedia: Learning Activities for Kids & Families on the Net

International Symposium 1998 TOP

To further support the company's focus on learning and kids' development, MaMaMedia formed a Board of Advisors, with Papert as chairman. Represented on the board are members of the MIT Media Lab faculty, as well as experts in learning theory, home entertainment, children's marketing, educational markets, new media technology, telecommunications, management and business strategy.

An active Board of Directors and business advisors also supports us. We received initial funding in early 1996 and have raised over $5 million to date. The company developed its first Internet and print products for a beta release in October '96, and officially launched in June '97.

MaMaMedia currently attracts tens of thousands visitors per month who request over 1,000,000 pages per month from the Web site. We expect to experience significant growth in traffic as the company expands its consumer-marketing activities during 1998.

So now, let's take a look at the site...

When people talk about kids on the Internet the most common questions are:

"Is the Internet really good for children?" or
"Can children really learn on the Internet?"

These are essentially flawed questions, because they ignore many basic facts about learning and the Internet itself. Like any tool, the Internet is only as good as its application.

Unfortunately, most companies developing online products for kids have internalized these questions in a way that compromises the final product. The result is online products which are isolated from the rest on the net, and which dress up flawed learning practices in "fun" clothing.

MaMaMedia tries to take a fundamentally different approach. Unlike most Web sites for children, which produce ongoing editorial programs to be consumed, MaMaMedia provides interactive multimedia products that kids come to play and create with-tools for kids to make their own Internet projects.

In designing our activities, we began with what we know about kids and how they learn. Then we looked at what our research has shown kids enjoy on the Internet: surfing, mail, personal home pages, interactive spaces on the Web, and creativity programs. Looking at these different activities, we tried to make distinctions about the qualities inherent in them that kids respond to.

On this basis, we could look at the Internet to see how this tool can best be used to deliver what kids are looking for. We then applied our learning expertise to channel these activities as constructive learning experiences.

We then developed unique tools that let kids make and share their own creations. By building an online community around these products, we build strong relationships with Web site visitors, while interactions among visitors and characters (show and tell) allow kids to learn from each other.

We divided our activities into four main areas, based on the Clickerati needs we wanted to address:

Romp provides guided surfing experiences for kids to explore-such as the first graphical Internet directory for kids, a tool for kids to make and share graphical directories of their own, visual search and visual bookmarking of Web sites

Surprise is an arena for tools, toys and activities for kids to express themselves-such as a desktop publishing toy for making "noisy pictures" and a multimedia authoring tool for kids to build their own cities on the MaMaMedia server

Buzz an area filled with community-building activities for kids to exchange creations and ideas-such as sending mail and visiting other kids' MaMaMedia cities, bookmarks and creations

Zap provides unique customization activities that put kids in control of their MaMaMedia experience-such as multimedia signatures that kids create to represent themselves and tools to redesign the interface for their MaMaMedia experience.

Our goal is to create a totally integrated online experience, a world that makes sense to kids, and also makes sense as a part of kids' world.

Other integrated products include: a companion web site for grownups, www.connectedfamily.com; a Magazine, MaMaMedia: A Kids Guide to the Net; and a Series of Classroom Internet Posters.

In conclusion, while MaMaMedia is a children's media company, I hope you can also see it as an expression of our learning theory, embodying in its products a new set of ideas about learning with technology. As the Internet matures as a medium, we look forward to the opportunity to develop increasingly powerful representations of our methodology.