CES 2013: What is tech bringing to child’s play? Tablets and apps.
Kids’ tech these days is all about the letter T -- for tablets and teaching, said Robin Raskin, president and founder of Living in Digital Times, at Sunday evening’s CES Unveiled.
The proliferation of tablets is a battle royale, according to Kids@Play Interactive coordinator Warren Buckleitner. “This battle is for keeps,” he wrote on the Kids@Play Summit website, declaring 2013 a landmark year in the tablet wars.
“Toy, media and hardware companies all know that a child’s tablet is just a $150 or so down-payment on a future in content sales; a fact that other big players like Microsoft (Surface), Google (Nexus) and Amazon (Kindle) also understand,” Buckleitner wrote.
And Raskin said Sunday that the explosion of tablets has shifted who can access and how we access information.
“You’re seeing what I’m calling the ‘renaissance of pedagogy,’” she said. “It used to be only the elite, elite, elite that could learn the stuff you needed to learn to be a well-rounded person. Now 2-year-olds are learning physics.”
The other areas she’s excited about for kids are apps and the creative space. “We’re seeing a ton of apps, a ton of tablets, a ton of exciting technology to enable kids.
“We have to create a society of kids who know how to talk, yes, read, yes, but make, too, because it’s so important to our economic future, as well as their own.
Raskin sees families embracing technology more, rather than keeping it at arm’s distance.
“I think a lot of that ‘I’m scared of my kid in the digital age’ is going away.” And that, she said, is a good thing.
On Wednesday, the Kids@Play Summit at CES will feature guest speakers focusing on how technology is shaping the way today’s kids learn and play as well as this generation’s unique way of interacting with their families.
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