It's been a long time

Yes I've fallen of the blog wagon. But why?

What I've been doing

Aside from the usual answers: it's hard to write, I forgot, we went on vacation, etc. the truth is I've been working on a project directly related to Leili's experiences at Language Stars that I haven't been able to write about yet. I am now, and I'll need input from my fellow parents teaching their kids new languages. To that end I'm unveiling the project now.

Practice

I've written a ton about the importance of home practice, and each week it seems harder to get Leili to do any. She's getting older, she's got a lot of distractions, including this:

Leili has a Nabi tablet but the concept is the same. Kids love tablets, and they love games. If only I could get Leili to practice her Spanish by playing a game on her tablet, but only there don't seem to be any good ones.

Funny sidenote. Last November I finished my MS in Computer Game Development. I can solve this problem.

Playing Practice

This is an early screenshot of my Spanish Flashcards game. You'll notice it's very different than the HTML5 one I wrote on this blog. For starters, there are no words. What happens is the game says the word in Spanish (on this screen estrella, mariquita, and arbor) and the player must touch the right image. This prototype plays a sound. That's it. I stuck it on my iPad, and gave it to Leili.

She played for 10 minutes. I win. For a quick prototype that's fantastic.

So now what?  Well what I did for Leili was iPad only, and completely hackish, violating all the principles of my software development career. In addition it had little to no scoring or playability. This is where you come in, dear reader. I'll be returning to regular blogging on this site with both updates to Leilani's (and perhaps Quinn's) status as well as updates to the game, and solitications of feedback and beta copies. This may be your chance to shape a learning product for your children.

Unless you'd rather your children play Angry Birds.