Newsomatic Android

Newsomatic, the app that we called “The Weekly Reader For Today’s Modern Classroom” was at ISTE 2014 in the startup pavilion showing off a new way for kids to take in the news, and their hot off the presses Android version of the app.

We already knew that Newsomatic presented five original stories per day that appealed to kids. The journalists, turned digital content creators, specialize in creating news content that appeals to kids and engages them at their level rather than talking down to them. Our six year old special correspondent Tatum checks her Newsomatic app daily, with the same importance that I read USA Today online.

We got a chance to dive into some of the features that make Newsomatic especially appealing with co-founder Lillian Holtclaw Stern.

In addition to the daily story content Newsomatic has a map function that will show their readers on a map where they are located and where the story takes place. If they’re reading a story about elephants in Africa the map shows them Africa. It then lets the reader drill down and find out about that particular area on the map.

The Newsroom function of Newsomatic allows readers to interact with the Newsomatic reporters. Kids love interacting with other people and the Newsomatic staff takes this part of their job as seriously as writing stories. One reader commented that they loved a story about summer camps because they were leaving for summer camp the next day. Others talk about whatever is on their mind related to the content.

A daily art contest keeps kids engaged with the content aside from just reading it. There is an art contest tied into each one of the stories so if there’s a story about rocket ships, kids create pictures of rocket ships and share them with the Newsomatic community.

The entire experience is very well rounded and not only gives kids an overview of what’s going on in their world but helps with reading comprehension, science, math, history and other subjects that kids are fascinated with.

Newsomatic says that their app is for 7-12 year olds but they’ve found that readers have been as young as five. There’s also a classroom version of the app which gives teachers access to curriculum tools to wrap the Newsomatic content around their daily lessons.

Find out more at press4kids.com