There’s no doubt that technology is an instrument for creativity. These days, net surfing, work, every day tasks, games and reading materials become much more enjoyable thanks to tablets.
“There is an app for that” navigate our digital life to find suitable replacements in the advanced world of applications for the things we enjoyed doing in the “regular” world.
“Faces iMake” is an artistic application that offers endless options for creativity that can mimic our natural creative action and place it on the tablet.
Are there not enough Creative Open End applications out there?
To be honest? No!
In the world of children and adult applications there are not a lot of sand box applications that offer a variety of creations, ways of self-expressions and self-thinking.
It is possible that we are missing more of the open end applications kind, since like in every other filed in life (being human) we tend to fixate on what we know and to narrow by choice (or not) our actions, possibilities and thoughts. There is no doubt that by doing so we are preventing our selfs and our kids from exploring what is possible in the filed of apps and going to the familiar and known.
It is important to us as developers and parents to emphasize the open end approach and to develop apps that fold inside the endless fields of creativity and imagination.
What do we recommend?
To sit with your children while they create. The same attention that we give while our kids create at home, using papers and crayons, playing with play dough or reading a book, we should pay attention to our children while they create and use their imagination on the application.
This can be an activity, that nurture the connection between us and our kids while using technology, an experience that the child and the parent share together. Having an iPad installed with so many apps (as many of us have) for the kids, this rich place of content enables might confuse them child skips the application he’s using and rush to the next one.
In the creative work application the parent is supposed to guide the child and tell him to take his time with it, and to create on the screen what he would have created on the kitchen table. It is a shame to miss out on the opportunity to create something fun and diverse in the virtual world- especially when this application is designed to allow the child to create in the unlimited world of his imagination.
The options of ‘Faces’
There’s no doubt that today we can share our children’s drawings not only on our refrigerator but with anyone we may choose. The children themselves can save their work using Faces, and share it with their grandparents or friends by e-mail or Facebook, and it’s even possible to turn the work they made into puzzles or magnets and give it away as a gift.
What in the renewal of making the creation tangible?
The meaning of all these options is not only the ability to share them, an element most of us got used to, but also the ability to make them real – for instance turning them into puzzles or magnets.
This allows the child to make a connection between what he created and his own reality. Some may look at this option as “execution”, bringing to life an idea that we usually leave in the virtual world, but for the children, this connection is significant and important because it emphasizes that the tangible and the virtual world are parallel to each other.