The Techfaster team got sidetracked on Monday morning at the International Society For Technology In Education (ISTE) conference in Atlanta Georgia. Our six year old special event corespondent Tatum F, had found the Tale2Go booth. Tales2Go is a Netflix like service that streams a giant catalog of kids audio books to whatever device kids have in their homes.
6 year old Tatum gives her thumbs up about Tales2go
On Monday morning after throwing iPads and playing with robots Tatum went over to the Tales2go booth and took a break listening to a Magic School Bus book in it’s entirety at the company’s table. Nevermind that the Tale2Go team was trying to talk to as many educators as possible during the conference, one of their core customers was using their product and they weren’t going to interrupt her.
That’s one of the great things about this innovative DC based tech startup. Tales2Go is made up of a team that’s passionate about kids, and not just trying to make a dollar off them or their parents. That culture trickles down from co-founders and husband and wife team William and Tracey Weil.
William Weil has spent nearly 25 years in the children’s media business. He’s worked for three of the biggest companies when it comes to children’s media; Disney, Nickelodeon and National Geographic. Some of his career credits include developing Noggin and TV Land for Nickelodeon and releasing March of the Penguins. But when his wife was trying to help his own kids find audio books to listen to for kids, they knew their had to be a better way. There wasn’t so they started Tales2Go.
Now Tales2Go boasts thousands of popular titles from Curious George and the Magic School Bus to timeless classics like Moby Dick. The service comes with a 30 day free trial and after that it’s listen to all you want for just $10 per month. But what’s better is the feature set within the app including the ability to instantly pick up where a listener left off on another device. This is great for the consumer product and when Tales2go is used in the classroom.
Tales2Go is even more important now as school districts across the country implement common core standards which place an emphasis on listening in addition to reading and writing. There are proven benefits from using Tales2Go and audio books in general to compliment traditional reading.
Tatum was exposed to many new apps during the ISTE conference but chose to listen to books on Tales2Go during the ride back home from Atlanta.
In the video above Tatum talks to William about Tales2Go. But when she finds out he worked at Nickelodeon she has some other important questions in mind. If you haven’t already watch the video above and go take advantage of the 30 day free Tales2go trial here.
