Member Article

Story-time goes high-tech

Traditional classroom story telling has moved into the 21st century, with help from a North East technology firm. County Durham-based Ameeca Ltd has designed MP3 headsets called ‘StoryPhones’, which will give children access to audio resources to develop their listening and language skills.

Ameeca uses state-of the-art technology to create electronic educational devices that make learning interesting and fun for children.

Simon Johnson, an electronics lecturer at Durham University’s School of Engineering and now Ameeca’s managing director, said: “StoryPhones is the brainchild of my wife Eleanor, an Early Years teacher. After 15 years of teaching using tapes and CDs for audio activities, Eleanor came up with the idea to bring MP3 technology into the classroom. “Within a year we had developed the prototype which we exhibited to potential investors, demonstrating how it worked. We’re now at the final engineering stage, making improvements to the product and design.”

The StoryPhones device links to a computer via a USB port, with supporting software that enables a teacher to download stories, manage audio files or buy new resources from the StoryPhones website, www.storyphones.co.uk.

The company, based in Annfield Plain, County Durham, hope to develop a range of electronic educational products and resources that create an engaging learning experience for children.

Simon said: “We want to use technology to help children to learn in a variety of settings and although our products do not specifically teach technology, the children will inevitably pick this up too. Over the next few years we will have a range of products in production that young children will enjoy learning from and hopefully want to come back for more.”

For more about Ameeca, visit ameeca.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .