The inventor of the popular Leap Pad is now on a mission to connect families through an interactive app that promises to be educational as well. CEO and Founder Jim Marggraff joins Cheddar News to talk about his latest educational invention – the Kinoo. 

Cheddar's News Wrap

App Connects Families Through Interactive Games

if you grew up in the nineties, chances are you learned how to read on a leap pad. The educational system made its way into 100 million households across the world, helping Children expand their knowledge through innovative technology. Now it's inventors on a new mission to help grandparents bond with their grandchildren through a family friendly ai infused app called canoe joining me. Now to tell us all about it is Jill McGrath. Jim McGrath, founder and Ceo of canoe. Jim, Welcome back. I talked to you earlier today, I was blown away by this app and there are so many apps out there that enabled video called like zoom and Skype but talk to me and our viewers and tell us how canoe is so different. How did you first come up with this idea? Thanks, thanks so much Hannah, so so canoe we're addressing a problem that is well known in families. A grandparent gets on a call with a grandchild or an older loved one and the child is young, say four years old and the call goes something like this. Hey johnny, how are you? Good, what are you up to? Nothing. And johnny runs off, mom chases after johnny with her smartphone. She wants the connection, she wants the support of her family members, aunts, uncles, friends, but johnny is not interested in taking a video chat and watching a talking head so you can put games into the video chat. The problem is a game alone, The child plays the game, they don't talk. So we have done is created a means with a character in the video chat, supported by prompts and counseling guidance real time. We give to the adult to play and support learning with the child in real time. And we add to that as you see on the screen, a device that the child plays with a wand. That's a magical wand that comes to life on the screen and it becomes different things in what's called augmented reality. And now we have family learning with the child with play with connection that extends the relationship with the child in ways that are quite extraordinary. It really is extraordinary. This app is so interactive. Like I mentioned, I used it before, I installed it. I want our viewers to see what you and I did a few hours earlier and then I'll talk to you on the other side. Great. We both can slide our tray and put things on the cake that are fun like frosting. Oh wow, I love, wow, my cake isn't yours is much prettier than my my technique. Okay, I don't even know, you can just spread it around. Well we can clear it. So pick something you want to slide your tray. You've got a lot of things. In fact, some strange things like like blueberries, chocolate, bananas, broccoli of course if you want it fun for a child, you do things like certainly some candles, but you then do things for boys, like some trains and maybe well I'm going to add a ballerina because I am. Oh yeah why not? We can make an amazing cake. We can, we can as well say I can take you by the way, Cody loves whipped cream. You're just going to talk to us. We'll start by taking pictures for your space passport. Yes. Okay. First put your head in the window frame, smile and take a picture with the green. I love it. Jim this is this technology is incredible. Now we do a crazy face ready. Here we go. So you and I each see our own passport on our screen and when we're ready we keep going. Okay now we do a little bit of, you can go ahead and flip the switch to go to the moon. What's Oh there you go. And we need some can you do you know what red is? You turn it down to read Yes, there you go. How about another one? And I'll do the 3rd 1. Okay now we do a countdown, now you're gonna count in practice counting backwards. 1098. Get ready, I'm getting excited. Yeah, here we go. Here we go and click blast off and now we go to the moon. Now on the way to the moon in order for us to talk to each other, you're going to see on your screen, you'll see a little prompt come up, do you see it? Then we'll be able to do a moon dance together. There we go. I love the sound, this is fantastic. So here we go. You pick your moon and you can hear the music. This is so cute. So the whole point, we want to guide the adult on things to talk about and when we're ready we danced enough, we'll do a flag planting a flag photo ceremony. We'll take our picture. Here we go. And if you want, you could show that on social media, you could share it with friends or family will keep it and and you can pass right now but it can be shared. Jim I was so impressed. My reactions were so genuine. My team was talking about it later. Like you really had a good time with this and I'm an adult, but it was just so interactive. Talk to me about other games on the app that are educational and how kids should play it and what the reaction has been, not only from Children but their grandparents and parents. Yeah, it it changes the entire way that a grandchild has a relationship with a grand granddaughter or grandson, granddad's come to life and they smile, they do things they wouldn't do on the learning front, which is significant. There is this, this device, it's a wand and again it's physical motion so when a child moves and you you get them moving in conjunction with teaching, they learn better and this is proven there's lots of research on this. So we have a game that's coming out soon that we call lasso letter where the child will take the wand and they'll the the adult will pick a letter for the child to learn like see they learned three letter word C a T to the adult picks the letter and the child lasses and lasses and goes and there's sound coming out of the wind and colors and they reach out and lasso in the letter and they hear, see says cut, cut and then the A's in the middle on a train and they last for a third letter T. The adult drags in and the child goes, wow and they last two in the T and then the child takes the wand and starts to get the train rolling and they hear a cat which is an epiphany for a child when they're learning what reading and sounding letters out is they learn phonics. So there's an example of what's called embodied learning, physical kinetic learning with the device with the support of the loved one who has been guided to teach them what they need to know at a certain time as the child is growing and we just keep helping that loved one help the child grow. So it's extended family, one on one, learning with fun that offers connection in a whole new way jim, I wish I had this when I was a kid. I'm actually telling my co Ankara's two young kids at home that he needs to get this after I played. It's such a pleasure talking to you. We hope you come back soon. Jim McGrath Ceo and founder of Canoe. And for more information on the app, you can visit canoe dot com. I downloaded it on my phone. It is very easy to make sure to try it if you have young kids.