Kindergarten in the Cyber Valley

Try this little quiz. Can you name some TV channels for kids in India? I’m sure any one could easily name two or three channels in the list – Pogo, Cartoon Network, Hungama TV, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Nick and Animax. Now the tough one. Can you name some kids portals in the cyber space? Think on for few minutes. No googling please.

I found this question tough to answer myself. When I asked this question to my friend, he told me about Jambav, a kids portal backed by AdventNet Inc, widely known for it’s web2.0 initiative Zoho. Though this site focuses on children with special needs, I found most of the interactive games and activities in the site really interesting and useful to all kids. The games here are simple, easy to play, fun and at the same time helps the toddlers learn something. I’ve tried these games and found them interesting, Color My Kar – A coloring activity game that gets more interesting once you have to mix different colors to create a new one. Cross Roads – helps your child learn how to cross roads, safely. And there is Kuku Klok – where Jambav teaches your child, how to tell time.

It’s focus on activity based learning than the traditional lecture based style like A for Apple, B for Ball – makes it stand out among the rest of the kids sites. Also I love this concept of using a super hero brand Jambav(Bear) which do the teaching stuff. On the flip side, this site though being developed in India, is only for the English speaking kids. May be they can make atleast Jambav Katha (stories) mutlilingual. Also they can add more bed time stories collection like fairy tales to Jambav Katha in addition to the tutorial series.

Coming back to the quiz, the question about kids portal looks tough not because you and me lacked general knowledge, it’s more so because of the fact that there are not many popular and useful websites for children available at present. So this provides a good opportunity for anyone willing to take the first step. I’ve seen kids as young as three deftly handling the TV remote to navigate the channels. Mouse is even simpler device to operate, so kids can easily use them and explore on their own, if the websites are designed thinking about their needs and skills in mind.

As the big boys are busy fighting in the gizmos arena with their X-box and Play Stations, will someone think differently and create a great playground for children in the web world? Will the “Learn from Home” concept matures enough in this Laptop powered generation to replace the Institution where I studied in the resume, to Graduated from Portal so and so era. Well it can atleast start at the Kindergarten level now.

Still a long way to go, Jambav’s and the likes.