Hi all,
I've been wanting to share these videos with everyone for a long time, and now I finally can!
We've been working on an infomercial in the US, and as part of the show, we needed to have testimonials from parents. Although we have had so many testimonials from people around the world, the problem was, they were all around the world!
So, since our production company was in California, in March this year, they helped us find nearly 40 sets of parents in California who were willing to try out Little Reader with their babies or toddlers. They were given Little Reader to use for free, with the only conditions being that they would use the product regularly, take some video footage of the learning process, and come back in for a video interview after about 10 weeks.
After 10 weeks, we were pleased to find that there were still over 30 parent groups still active with the program (a few parents had dropped out from the project due to reasons such as lack of time, or computer compatibility issues).
We had a limited studio time of two days which allowed us enough time to interview 10 parents for each day, and we invited 18 of those parents and another 2 more long-time Little Reader users to a film studio and interviewed them about their experience of using the program. One of the parents had to cancel at the last minute, so we ended up conducting 19 interviews.
There were some very clear themes that came out consistently. Let me share those themes with you along with the videos:
HOW IT AFFECTED THE CHILD:1. The children loved it!
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/SrW9v_IsR1c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/SrW9v_IsR1c&rel=1</a>]]> 2. Dramatic Improvement in Vocabulary and Communication
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/M3EHQ3AyuRk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/M3EHQ3AyuRk&rel=1</a>]]> Developing Reading Skills
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/C04fVI5yaEI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/C04fVI5yaEI&rel=1</a>]]> Other benefits such as an increase in confidence and desire to learn
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/9ZNvET7EWig&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/9ZNvET7EWig&rel=1</a>]]> HOW IT AFFECTED THE PARENT(S):Bonding Between Parent and Child
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/c3YYWQ8V47I&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/c3YYWQ8V47I&rel=1</a>]]> Parents' Pride in Being the First Teacher
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMXa5dHTDZw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/xMXa5dHTDZw&rel=1</a>]]> And speaking of teachers, what did teachers think? Very fortunately (totally unplanned!), we had two current and former 6th grade English teachers in the group. This is what they said:
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JPGP1LD_Yhs&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JPGP1LD_Yhs&rel=1</a>]]> -----------
Making the Video MontagesThe above video montages are just some of the montages that appear in the show. They made from over 11 hours of video testimonial footage. Originally, each theme had a length of about 2 minutes, which was already shorter than we would have liked. However, due to the constraint of time for the infomercial, we had to reduce most of them down to under a minute – often a very heart-breaking and agonizing process!
We hope to be able to show extended versions of the videos when time and resources permit (it's quite a painstaking process to produce each part, especially in removing all the green screen elements from the background).
Lastly, Tonya (TeachingMyToddlers) is also part of the parent group! She's the only one there who was an 'old' user. She's the one in a purple shirt with her husband David (in a blue shirt). Thanks again, Tonya!!
"Are those people actors?"One question we sometimes get from viewers is whether the interviews are 'real' interviews, as opposed to scripted interviews with paid actors, because they sometimes seem 'too good to be true'. We take that as a great compliment!
All I can say is, absolutely not. In fact, we would be more than happy to provide access to the entire unedited interview footage, full transcript of the interviews, and even contact details of each of the parents, to any person or organization that has a legitimate interest in finding out.
Let me know what you guys think!
KL
Digg
