The Next Web

“There really aren’t any multimedia encyclopedias for kids”, says Larry. “Not that I’m aware of at least. Not even for purchase, let alone free. I’ve created a load of videos, such as The Moon for Kids. The idea is I can make a zillion of those kind of videos, and I like doing it and I have experience using them. They’re extremely effective learning tools, and everybody who uses them likes them. I think they would work even better on Reading Bear. So the idea is, I could put together a multimedia encyclopedia for children, and this would require changing the software of Reading Bear, but most of the features needed are already there.” “When I was getting into early education with my son, I was really struck by the existence of what people call ‘concept books’”, says Larry. “They basically teach concepts explicitly, they try to explain what Fall is, for example, using a sentence, and then associate it with a picture. And it seems to me that such concept books really belong online in digital form. It’s much more effective to incorporate videos and to use things like synchronized highlighting of text in the same way as Reading Bear does. There’s a real opportunity to teach little kids a lot more than they have been taught using technology. Right now, that’s what I’m interested in doing.” (via TNW Interviews Wikipedia Co-Founder Larry Sanger)