Ken Law

Ken Law is the CEO of Famloop, Hong Kong. He witnessed firsthand that a company can make money and contribute to society at the same time. After earning his MS degree at Stanford, he joined Google as the first group of interns and became a full-time employee in 2000. While at Google, Ken developed a patented algorithm to find related pages. In 2007, Ken returned to Hong Kong and started working on apps.

Famloop is on a mission to create new storytelling experiences for the digital generation and believes in love+play+learn, that children learn best if learning is more like playing and if they do it with the family. Smartphones and tablets are more than a babysitter - they can be a powerful medium to tell a story, to learn, and to help parents connect with their children. Famloop collaborates with the world’s best publishers and character creators, including Dorling Kindersley, Egmont, British Council and Reader’s Digest.

Presentation Title:

Attracting and Engaging the iPad-Generation Children to Read

Synopsis:

Developing a child’s love of reading has never been more challenging. There are more types of media fighting for their attention than ever before. Video games, mobile phones, social media and TV are just some of the distractions preventing children from picking up a book. What’s more, these devices and technologies are causing children to become engrossed in their own little world and isolated from their friends and family.

Parents and teachers need to find a way to get children reading again. Is there a way they can use the same attention sapping technology to improve children’s engagement with written storytelling and learning from reading?

We will discuss the findings and insights gained from our experimental projects in creating iPad children’s books. We’ll discuss how we can engage reluctant readers with a more innovative type of storytelling, harnessing the benefits of digital technology. This includes dialogic reading that improves reading comprehension and the use of social media to turn reading into a social experience involving the whole family.

Being able to read is the foundation of learning. But children won’t pick up a book and start reading without encouragement. In this session, you will learn:

1. An overview of the digital ebook landscape
2. How to use dialogic reading on iPad to enhance reading comprehension
3. How to enhance the reading experience with social media
4. Our findings from testing our iPad children’s books in kindergartens and family homes