Kim's Blog

Rethinking Content Delivery

Since Shakespeare Squared was founded in 2003 (not so long ago, but it seems like a lifetime!), new technologies have been changing the way we all learn, work, play, and live—and more frequently than at any other time in history. 

Students in PreK–12 classrooms are keeping up with these new technologies without any problems, however. Most of them have been creating and accessing content via iPods, computers, and cell phones almost since birth. For example, Jack, my three-year-old son, is very adept at using my iPhone. When we go to the mall, he actually walks up to the advertising kiosks and tries to use them like the touch screen on an iPhone. Then he gives me a puzzled look because he doesn’t understand why they won’t work!

When I was a teacher, cell phones were strictly prohibited in class. They were seen as a distraction, an interruption.  But now I see that they can be used as a tool, a means to an end. Children today will not know life before TiVo, touch screen technology, or using cell phones as computers.

Shakespeare Squared keeps children like my son Jack—the true end users of educational content—in mind when developing products for our clients. It is important to remain focused on the bottom line, but students are forcing the technology issue in the classroom—often seen as a distraction but is actually an opportunity for creative methods of learning. Educational publishers absolutely must think about the end user when developing not only content, but ways in which to deliver this content. End users like my son Jack, for whom digital media is ingrained in everything he sees and does.

Do you have any stories of how your children or students are using new technologies that inspired you to deliver content in a new way? I’d love to hear them.