Researching Target Audience 

"When I visited the kids’ library at  Houston Public Library last week, I learned 2 amazing things from children’s librarian Sandy Farmer: wii games were available for in-library checkout, and the library   would soon be lending out ipads   stocked with apps and games especially for kids. What a grand idea. I can vouch that kids under 10 find the  ipad absolutely engaging.   Not only has it become a permanent babysitter, it has caused endless number of fights about whose turn it is to play and which game to play and why can’t X play the 2 player version of the game.  Out of the first few words to come from their mouths when they see me, I can say with certainty that one of them will be “ipad”  followed with a question mark. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I use the device mainly for catching up on RSS feeds."
(Nagle 2011)

"Over time I have downloaded a number of kids’ games – some cost money, but most of them were free. I haven’t really looked at the games themselves, but I  have paid  attention to which games are capturing their attention.   I have  two nieces ages 3 and 4 and two nephews aged 5 and 10. So I really have a good sense of what games are more likely to excite them. I have a bit of an educational background and have written about educational games here and here. Curiously though, I haven’t spent much time playing games (except for Wii Dance 2 – which I love). Mainly I like to see what games are engaging today’s youth and what kinds of narratives they are concocting with their games. For example, I have noticed that my nephew really gets into Will Wright’s Spore (and even though it isn’t educational per se, it does a good job of conveying the basic sequence of evolution and how societies progress and regress.  On the Playstation, not only will my nephew learn about longer narratives like Harry Potter and Star Wars by playing the games, he will gleefully recount his adventures to anyone willing to listen. So these  games can have a verbal component… plus they can drive kids to the original source material…always a good thing."
(Nagle 2011)

"Ipad games are much less ambitious, but more intuitive. 3 out of the 4 children I deal with don’t even know how to read, and yet they managed to get through the menus and figure out the rules – something which amazes me to no end. I think there is value in letting kids play game just for the fun of it, but it would help if the games stressed some learning domain or made use of some cognitive skill. About 2/3 of the titles are free or Lite versions, and 1/3 are commercial apps. I’ll indicate if I remember whether they are free or cost money."
(Nagle 2011)

Nagle, R. (2011). Learning Games, Apps & Ebooks for Kids on the Ipad.Available: http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/2011/01/learning-games-apps-ebooks-for-kids-on-the-ipad/. Last accessed 29th Sep 2012.

http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/2011/01/learning-games-apps-ebooks-for-kids-on-the-ipad/