With the introduction of our new website, we thought it was about time for you to get to know us better via a real blog. So here it is...
Let us give you some background about Mobile Montessori and how we work. First of all, we are a family business made up of two generations of the Wickremasinghe family, not a faceless corporate entity bent on maximizing profits at the expense of its customers. A lot of thought and care goes into our apps so that children can be engaged by learning, instead of just being entertained.
Our educational advisor, Manel Wickremasinghe, began teaching as a Montessori directress in 1969 and just retired last year, in 2013. After working one-on-one with over 2,000 children in her career, her input is crucial to our apps. Some of our apps, such as Number Sequencing - What Comes Before? After? & In Between? came from activities she would hand-make for children struggling with a particular concept. Of course, most of our apps are inspired by the materials designed by Maria Montessori and we have endeavored to bring these to the iPad in as true a form as possible. Never do we claim these apps to replace the physical materials, but as a supplement, we strongly believe they have their place.
As we continued to make more educational apps, schools around the world, both public and private, began adding them to their curriculum. Honestly, at the start, being such a small outfit, we didn't think we'd be noticed by schools and the like. But, to our pleasant surprise, they took to our apps with much enthusiasm. Some have sent us pics and videos how they use our apps in their classrooms and we were just thrilled to see our apps being used in such capacities appropriately.
We also began receiving feedback from educators of children with special needs, such as autism or apraxia of speech with positive results. Our simple designs with easily navigable menu structures worked well with them. We even received comments from individuals working with brain surgery patients that they were using our series of math and geography apps.
Who would've thought there would be so many uses for educational iPad apps? Steve Jobs did. When we saw his first presentation releasing the iPad, his enthusiasm for what this device would become was not forced, it was genuine - and contagious! We had been developing small apps for the iPhone, but when we saw how big the iPad screen was, our minds began to race...
And we're still running....! It's difficult to keep up with all the ideas we have, but we prefer to keep things in-house, so we keep working, one app at a time...
As we do that, we'll keep you posted on what we're working on and any interesting news that comes up. Please, feel free to contact us with your questions, comments and suggestions! And, of course, we sincerely thank you for your support of Mobile Montessori apps! Without you, we wouldn't be able to continue on this exciting journey...