Originally answered on Quora: (2) Prannay Jha’s answer to Is Disney BYJU’S: Early Learn app good for my kids? – Quora
The inception of the Disney BYJU’S Early Learn App happened back in 2017. It started off as a K-3 product i.e. from KG to grade 3rd. We created the curriculum taking all international boards into account as it’d be BYJU’S first international product. Disney actually came in a few months later[1] as they were impressed with the POCs, the quality and the quantity that BYJU’S was able to achieve. Here are a few highlights and advantages:
- Story Telling (Engagement): Since it’s a product for the younger audience, story telling had to be engaging for the students. There were Bollywood and Hollywood directors and scriptwriters called to help us intertwine content with story. I had personally started my stint in the Product department with a few scripts of K3 (The chapter about centuries, has a bunny making 100 centuries. She’s named Chanis (Anagram)). Each unit was created keeping in mind attention span, effectiveness of content communication and retention. There were teams across content, instructional design, tech, art, animation gaming.
- Disney (Familiarity for Kids with their favourite characters): After Disney came, we got access to their characters and and their movies arcs. This was inculcated in the video lectures. So a typical teaching unit would have a Disney jacket to it. Steve McQueen wants to cross a bridge to go to a competition and you have to calculate the length of the bridge. This also, gave the option to have games made around Disney characters as well.
- 3D Content (A format loved by kids): The Disney BYJU’S Early Learn product has a large amount of 3D animated content. There are more than 1000 teaching units amounting to more than 200 hours of curated content. At the peak, there were more than 1000 animators working on the product across the country.[2]
- OSMO (Physical Interaction): During the making of the product, BYJU’S took over this US based company called OSMO. They have a unique technology that connects physical media with digital media. Basically this gave students an opportunity to play games, quizzes and activities on A4 sheets! This was a major add-on as physical engagement was earlier very difficult to incorporate in an Ed-Tech product.
PS: I know the details as I stayed with the Product Owner for Early Learn the past 2.5 years.
Footnotes
[1] Byju’s, Disney tie up to create educational content for primary school
[2] Disney. BYJU’S Early Learn Program