Happy New Year! After a brief, but much-needed respite, the Enable team is back in the office, and already showing 2012 who’s boss.
We’d like to formally welcome our new co-op students, Kevin, Hank and Naheed, and we’d like to welcome Matt back for his second work term with us. Kevin and Hank will be learning the ropes with our education and training team, Matt will be working in the programming department, and Naheed will be lending his skills to marketing. We’re delighted to have all of them on board, and we can’t wait to see what new and amazing ideas they’ll bring to the table.
Two of us spent Friday and Saturday at the Ontario Conference for Exceptional Children, and met some extraordinary teachers, parents and students. Conferences and trade shows are always great for making new connections, but they also serve to inspire and reinforce that what we’re doing is important.
A point of focus in this organization is the use of technology to engage learners with learning challenges, behaviour issues, or autism spectrum disorder. Karen and I were both thrilled to think that we might reach and assist such a variety of children, especially since our first iPad app was submitted the day before the conference, and is likely to be available in the next week or two. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to find that something we’ve created has such potential!
Thanks so much to everyone at CEC for their insights!
Our first app is almost ready to be launched, and four more are in the works! I thought it was cool when Mark Hughes (our illustrator) put a face to “Sophia”, our narrator. It makes me downright misty to see her walking, talking and teaching philosophy on a screen. What more could a writer wish for?
First, a big thanks to all of the amazing minds who have been toiling away on design, programming, editing, and animating, including (in no particular order):
Mark Hughes
Karen Smolenaars
Ruth Riddell
Ami Moore
Sarah Bonin
Greg Sullivan
Octavian Ciubotariu
Ben Zimmer
Thanks also to the marvelous cast of voices who will be helping to bring these books to life!
Here is a list of nifty features this set of apps will have:
Scrollable text (they are interactive books, after all)
Full-color, animated illustrations
Fully-narrated, for kids who like to listen and follow along
Interactive maps and timelines
Interactive activities, including some pretty cool colouring pages
Stay tuned for news about where and when these masterpieces can be found!
Um, yeah, well, it’s been a while since we posted here. The good news is, our lack of blogginess over the past couple months has been due to our abundance of busyness. In an effort to get on schedule, here is a highlight reel.
With heavy hearts, we said goodbye to a fantastic bunch of summer co-op students (thanks for the hard work, guys). In September, we welcomed back Greg and Sarah, two bright lights from the University of Waterloo, for their second co-op term with us.
Karen Smolenaars joined our team as Office Manager, and Ruth Riddell came on board as our new video editor. Hooray!
ThinkAboutIt, our series of philosophy books for kids, has been making the rounds! Since our last post, we’ve released two new books (environmental philosophy and aesthetics). Three more books will be on their way early in 2012.
We also participated in Word On The Street in Toronto, as well as Milton Green’s “Green Holiday” event. This past weekend, we celebrated with an official launch party.
Work has begun on both IPad apps and teacher packs for our books! Both are scheduled for release at the end of 2011, and we’re so excited to be starting into this new venture.
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