Storytail

Nowadays many children are exposed to unfiltered (media) content, be it on the internet or on television, in advertisements or in games. Parents cannot always be around to filter this content and to tell the children what is good and what is not. Therefore, it is important that parents teach their children values. Values can help children to make judgements on what is good or bad themselves. Storytelling is a great opportunity for parents to teach their children values. Since the content of a story is not pre-defined, both parents and children can add elements that they think are important to the story, thus creating their own 'customized' content. This content might be based on own experiences or on fantasy situations.

The storytail supports parent and child in creating their own stories. It provides the main ingredients for a story: First, it provides story characters in the form of cuddly toys. All characters are animals, since these are familiar to children and can have different personalities. Second, it provides locations where the story can take place. Each location has its own identity and atmosphere. Examples of locations are an 'sea location' or a 'forest location'. Finally, the StoryTail provides triggers to keep the story going. When a story character is placed onto a 'hotspot' in a location a sound will be triggered. This sound is unique for each character and for each location. The sound effect will thus always fit the story content, but it can provide inspiration for the storyline.

In this way, the StoryTail provides a unique context for storytelling. Parent and child can steer the direction of the story in a calm and intimate setting. This allows parents but also children to open up and discuss topics that are on their minds.