It’ been so long since I’ve seen an episode of Reading Rainbow. I remember jumping in front of the the television whenever the theme song comes on and anticipating the story and book recommendations for the day. Now thanks to LeVar Burton, the host and creator of Reading Rainbow,this show is making a return but not on television. The format has changed, this time around the goal of Reading Rainbow is to reach the younger generation who have the ability to tap into the desktop, notebook, mobile and tablet platforms with the imagination and inspiration of reading that it successfully accomplished with the previous generation.
LeVar’s dream is that every child can be educated anytime and everywhere not only in the classrooms but homes as well where parents who grew up watching Reading Rainbow will find the time interacting with their children with what the apps have to offer. There is an mobile app that is available for download but LeVar hopes that his Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign will expand his platform even further. So far the Kickstarter pledge has increased way past the established amount of $1 million to about $3 million but now he hopes that contributors can pledge past $5.7 million.
I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to seeing the final product of the Reading Rainbow digital medium. The importance of open source learning has increased in popularity among young adults looking to expand their work skills and education so it’s not a surprise that this concept can reach young children. I do prefer their imagination fly with stories of adventure, science, fantasy and history over clicking the remote every couple of seconds and risk watching one of those horrible reality shows that are polluting the airwaves. The important thing is that parents should get involved and encourage their children to read books from the library or downloaded from a tablet.
Why stop there? Other countries can do the same with their own children edutainment, I would love to see the Latino tech startups getting involved in this endeavor as a complimentary tool of a child’s education.
