The instructional software chosen was Blue's Art Time Activities, developed by Humongous Entertainment for children ages 3-7. The software has Blue and his friends helping the user complete artworks for an art show through discovery, games, tutorials and other activities. As the user progresses, activities get more difficult. The software is colorful, entertaining, and fosters creativity, but lacks instructions for some activities. Localizing it with Filipino characters like from Batibot could still be effective if in Tagalog.

1. Tardio, Jenna Karla C. INTRIST S21 July 27, 2009
Post Activity: Instructional Software
The instructional software that my partner and I chose is Blue’s Art Time
Activities, with our given topic, Art. It was develop by Humongous Entertainment with
the collaboration of the TV channel, Nickelodeon specifically Nick Jr. The target age of
this software is from 3-7 years old.
Basically, it is about Blue, the blue dog TV cartoon character, helping his friends,
with the help of the users as well in finishing the art works that they will present in the
upcoming Art Show. Steve, the human partner of Blue is also present in the software.
The techniques used in the software are discovery, games, drill and practice, tutorial
and a lot more. The different activities present in the software are completing an art
book with built in stories, creating and designing an invitation, color combination in a
game mode and more. As the user progress, the activity gets a little tougher as well. At
the end of the activity, there is also a feature that the user or maybe the parent may be
able to give awards to the artworks that he/she made.
As an IST student, I think the users, pertaining to the kids, will appreciate the
software for it is very colorful, entertaining and also it hones the individuality and
creativity of those who will play the game. It will be both learning and gaming for the
kids. It taps different artistic skills of the user for the game has different activities. It
teaches different values as well like recycling trash and other things.
It has some down sides though because it lacks instructions on how to approach
a specific activity. It mostly relates to the user in terms of audio, visual and animation.
If the software will be produced locally, I think it will still be effective if the
characters were different. For example the characters in Batibot will be used in the
software. Same activities will be efficient for Filipino kids. It will be best if tagalog
language will be used. I think it won’t be a hard time because the art terms in tagalog
are just simple and easy to understand.
But I don’t think that the localized version of this software will be “bought”
because kids nowadays prefer international cartoon characters like Dora, Spongebob
and many more.