Imagine a darkened kid’s room at night with a pup tent set up in the middle of the room. As your eyes pan across the tent you see there are patterns of Pyramids, Stonehenge, Towers, great Bridges and The Colosseum. Inside the tent, instead of seeing the beams of a flashlight dancing about, you see the rectangular light of an iPad moving around. And as you peer in closer, you see a Dad’s silhouette. He’s finishing up a story and says, “And that’s the story of Machu Picchu, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World!” Next to him, a little head moves to look at him and his DAUGHTER says, “Daddy, that was great! When can we go back?” Beaming with happiness, Dad says, “We can go back any time. How about tomorrow night? Sis.”
It’s the potential for that kind of interaction between moms, dads and their kids that really excites me the most when I share that my group, TheWondersExpedition.com is writing Interactive Books for the iPad. These incredible digital books go way beyond what’s available in paperback or e-Pub formats for Kindle and Nook. These have 3-D animations, HD-video and hi-res photos complete with 360° tours. It’s the mobile interactive museum you take with you.
Presently, we have a Kickstarter.com campaign underway (http://alturl.com/4doap) to raise support for the first and most extensive Interactive Book for the iPad on Machu Picchu, one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World,” located in the heart of the Andes Mountains in Peru in South America.
Most people will never get to visit this site that was “re-discovered” in the jungle 100 years ago. The travel costs to go in person are expensive, particularly for a family with children. The site is remote. And the Peruvian government limits daily admittance to 2,500 people.
How This Book Will Help Moms and Dads
We all want our children to grow up with a taste of all that’s going on in the world and let’s face it, the cost of travel, particularly in this economy isn’t easy. And when it comes time for children to do book reports, research papers or the dreaded theme for class, we want them to have good resources that are easy to get to, will help them get a good sense of what they’re studying, and be able to use that information in a way that minimizes your need to write it for them.
With our Interactive Books for the iPad, that’s one of the goals we have in mind as we approach each project.
We want you to be able to let your young children explore the world and do so safely, with good, positive and informative content. We want you to be able to read and explore with them, or let the book handle the heavy lifting and help them learn with great, easy-to-understand interactive graphs, charts and examples that help today’s learners better conceptualize things about their world.
But We Need Your Help
Our effort for the Machu Picchu book in Peru is just beginning. In order to go to Peru and gather up the 3-D animations, HD video and hi-res photos for the book, we have to send a crew to Peru from North America. We intend to go in June/July and are raising funds through a crowd-sourcing Website called Kickstarter.com (http://alturl.com/4doap). By pledging support for our project, backers are promised a collection of cool rewards, including t-shirts, copies of the book, a vote on one of the three final cover options, and for those who pledge $25 or more, they get their name in the back of the book.
The campaign to raise the funds is underway and goes until May 2. That’s not a lot of time and we have a lot to raise.
Please think about the magic that can be shared with your children through an Interactive Book for the iPad that has great photos, imagery and video of one of the most mysterious places on Earth. And please go to our Kickstarter.com (http://alturl.com/4doap) campaign and make a pledge. Help write history by backing this important, first-of-its-kind project.
This guest post written by:
Donald J. Claxton–Founder and CEO
The Wonders Expedition™ was founded by Dallas Public Relations Executive, Donald J. Claxton, who has has 25 years of experience in public relations having served two Alabama governors, a presidential candidate, and later as the communications director of Dallas Schools, the 12th largest public school district in America.
He also has managed parts of the corporate social responsibility efforts for ExxonMobil through their supported Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics educational programs.
Mr. Claxton presently owns Claxton Creative, LLC of Dallas and is an avid user of social media, with more than 12,000 followers on his personal Twitter account. He has appeared numerous times in live interviews and discussions on CNN, MSNBC and the BBC.
He also was the original developer for the state of Alabama’s Website, launching it in August 1995. In November 2001, as the CEO of Amerithink, Inc. his company accurately conducted exit polling using Palm Query Applications on the Palm VII. Most recently he also has been involved with the start up of Digheon Healthcare, Inc. of Huntsville, AL, a budding Electronic Health Records company.
After having been the editor of his college newspaper, the Aumnibus, at Auburn University at Montgomery‘s campus in the late 1980s, Mr. Claxton was named by Professor John Fair as the school’s “Foremost student iconoclast.”