Brisbane's ORIGO Education finalist at international EdTech Awards

Brisbane-based ORIGO Education has been named a finalist in the international EdTech Digital Cool Tool Awards for its Big Books series.

The company provides mathematics-focused educational tools including traditional printed products and digital interactive resources. It developed the animated Big Books series within months of the onset of COVID-19 to meet the requirement for remote learning tools. 

The storybooks for young learners are digitised tools designed to help parents and teachers engage children in this new ‘norm’ of learning.

The books feature animated avatar ‘teachers’ that read the stories and pause after each page to engage the learners with questions.

James Burnett, co-founder and co-author of the series, said his team was honoured to have been recognised as a finalised in the EdTech Awards.

“The EdTech Awards are the largest and most competitive program in all of education technology,” he said.

“The awards recognise people in and around education for outstanding contributions in transforming education through technology to enrich the lives of learners everywhere.”

ORIGO Education worked with Cetati Studios, whose artists hail from creative centres including Pixar, Disney and Warner Brothers, to produce engaging digital versions of ORIGO Big Books.

“Learning math through stories is fun and feels natural when kids form an emotional bond with diverse characters they can relate to,” said Brian Lovrin, CEO and co-founder of Cetati Studios.

The Big Books are designed to introduce new mathematics concepts to students in foundation to Year 2 by using language and contexts that are familiar to them.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/chanpipat