We were delighted to be part of The Ontario Library Association Super Conference, and Reading For the Love of It.  These two conferences gave us the opportunity to meet librarians and educators from all over Canada.  Thanks very much to Karen, Mark and Naheed for their time and contributions!

We’re also excited about the release of our fifth book of philosophy for kids, Epistemology: How Do You Know What You Know? A book of ethics is now in the works, along with more fantastic apps and teacher materials.

Congratulations to Ben Zimmer, our intrepid leader, who is now a Certified Labview Architect!

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.

We’re also dancing in our chairs over our three new apps!  For the iPhone, we have an FRC game manual, and for the iPad, we have ThinkAboutIt3 (Environmental Philosophy for children), ThinkAboutIt4 (Aesthetics for children), and According to Phil: A Young Thinker’s Guide to Robots.  Check them out, and while you’re at it, have a peek at our spiffy new book trailers!

2011 has been such an amazing year, and Ben and I feel incredibly fortunate to work with such talented, hard-working and funny people.  Happy holidays, everyone, and here’s to an even more amazing 2012!

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!

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!

• 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.

2. We have amazing friends at LEGO Education, NI, and FIRST, and they have excellent taste in restaurants.  Did you know that there are places that serve 15 kinds of meat at once, and that asparagus can be served beer-battered with lemon aioli?  Thanks for the phenomenal meals, guys!

3. Partnerships can begin by chance, in unexpected places.  Looking forward to working with all our new acquaintances!

4. Conferences like this are just as useful for learning to communicate and network as they are for picking up technical knowledge.

5.  There are always new tricks to be learned (insert smart crack about “old dogs” here).

Check out the new addition to our publishing repertoire!  “According To Phil: A Young Thinker’s Guide to Robots” is now available at www.kidsthinkaboutit.com.

Packed with fascinating facts, high-tech history and awesome activity pages, this book invites readers aged 7-10 to jump into the wonderful world of robots!  It’s also great for grown-ups who’ve also been curious.