Central Park™ is designed to be an interactive web-based reading, math, and science curriculum for children ages two to eight that teaches both educational and character education (non-cognitive) concepts. Central Park is being developed as a dynamic, cohesive exploration of what is believed to be the best possible way to give children the very finest early educational experience. Through a cast of fully developed animated characters with an embedded narrative structure featuring 3-D animation, music, and character interaction, Central Park is adaptive to each individual student and maintains a child’s attention to learning. Central Park is a web-delivered product and currently consists of prototype-quality media including ABC songs, counting songs, math and science songs, nursery rhyme books, videos of nature and everyday places, non-computer home activities, animated story segments, and printables.
The current pilot program has over one thousand homes participating. The purpose of the pilot is to collect data on usage of the product and feedback/opinions from users on the program’s design and their experiences with the program. All data collected will be used to improve the product design.
Pilot participants are parents and caregivers with a 2-year-old child (on their lap) and access to the Internet. The usage requirement is 15 minutes, 3 days per week, for 6 to 8 weeks. The adult controls the mouse and replies to surveys designed to collect their opinions at the beginning, middle, and end of the trial.
