The TinkerTeam
Dr. Angela Chang is an inventor, educator, and designer. She received her PhD from the MIT Media Lab and is the founder of TinkerStories. She specializes in Human Computer Interaction and managed a multi-organization collaboration for deploying educational literacy software internationally. During her PhD research on early literacy, she was emotionally moved by the intimacy and guidance the parents she studied provided to their children. When they read to their children, they were teaching and bonding– developing a strong relationship using storytelling techniques. She thought, if only all parents could know how to make learning to read more effective and fun, all would benefit. She dissected these beneficial teaching behaviors and put them into interactive storybooks. She envisions TinkerStories to help parents perform the reading behaviors that make learning to read effective, fun, and personal.
To develop the experiences, she’s interviewed artists, storytellers, game designers, who gave great advice on how to create engaging games. Here are their initials: KP, LP, KB, JO, CW, EW, EK, SF, TB, MB, AS, NH, CF-V, JE, MW, EK, MS, EA, NM, CB, ES, JG, IG, DS ,GD, FF. She also performed ethnographies on parents and children reading together to observe how parents effectively read to their children. Thank you to all these wonderful parent-child pairs who helped me see how beautiful shared storytime could be: Virginia & Sofia, Cynthia & Caleb, Yolita & Reese, Benjamin & Bennet, Sarah & Violette, Sarah & Scarlette, Sarah & Sophia, Yoojin & Adam, Mirit & Tal, Tiffany & Felix, Danielle & Lily, Pamela & Jeffrey, Clare & Nyle, Rebecca & Douglas.
Previous team members who have helped TinkerStories enter the MIT $100K and MassChallenge: Ali Almossawi, Firas Glaiel, Kin Lo, and Adil Utembayev from the MIT Sloan School of Management.