In my last blog post, I wrote about our focus on developing educational games to mobile phones. I wrote about the huge potential we see in the mobile phone as a learning device in school and at home. Now we have developed the first two iPhone applications that teaches kids English by playing English Sudoku and Word Search on the iPhone.

Kids’ Sudoku is the same as we have in Mingoville Virtual World – the kids have to find the right word by listening to the words and pick the one missing in the grid. The English words are repeated throughout the game and in the end of the game, it summons which English words the kid has learned. The repetition of words improves the kids English vocabulary. The English Sudoko for kids combines text, sounds and images for more fun English learning. There are different levels and many different games in the same game. Read the blog about the English Sudoku game in Mingoville and how it works here. Read more and download Kids’ Sudoku for the iPhone here.

Kids’ Word Search is also inspired by the Word Search we have in Mingoville Virtual World. In this game, the kids have to find the word pictured to the right in the grid horisontally, vertically or diagonally. The game is an exercise in spelling and recognizing words. This game also combines text, sounds and images which enhances the kids’ ability to remember the English words. It is played on time. The game has many levels each level with it’s own set of words to be learned. There are 68 English words which are chosen randomly for each game.

To download the two games, go to the Education category in the App Store and search for Mingoville Education.

We are very aware that most kids do not have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, however as it is right now iTunes is by far the easiest way to download mobile applications and it has the largest application store which is why we decided to start there. In the future, we will develop English games for other mobile phones as well so everybody gets a chance to learn English on the mobile phone. For now, parent, here is your opportunity – go download the Mingoville Kids Sudoku and the Mingoville Kids Word Search and let your kid learn English on the mobile phone. It only costs $1.

On Monday, Stephan gave an interview to Edukwest about our mobile focus and the trends he saw while attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. You can see and listen to the interview below.

Have fun with the new games for the mobile phone – they are excellent for entertaining the kids on the go as well as in class.

Greetings from Mingoville,

It is time to write an update on the progress of the Mingoville MMOEG (Massively Multiplayer Online Educational Game) that we recently announced about on our blog. We are going the full speed with building an exhilarating educational experience for kids who want to learn English as a second language (ESL) and have fun by playing exciting games.

Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of testing, the results of which we will share next time. Until then we wanted to show you some of the MMOG maps (drawings) to be found in the Mingoville Virtual World.

Cafe Map – this is where you are going to meet your buddies, start the conversation game, the racing game,  the fish game and much more.

Airport Map – Here you can take tours, get ice-cream and water tour as well as stand at a table in groups and chat (launched by hitting the tables).

Station Map – There is a good public transportation system in Mingoville.

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Hello World,

Recently, we have received so many great comments about our Mingoville program. Thank you. You have no idea how exciting it is to hear your positive feedback. We are so happy you love using Mingoville to learn English.

We wanted to take this opportunity and share with you the exciting news we’ve kept a secret for the last couple of months. In the form of a virtual world, Mingoville is introducing a new English learning product for our young English learners – Mingoville Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). Internally, we call it MMOngoville.

MMOngoville (Universe)

There are three goals we want to achieve with MMongoville. Those are:

1. It has to be based on English Learning (as ESL) – Even though Mingoville is fun and entertaining, we still want to focus a great deal on education. Inside the Universe, there will be captivating games the main purpose of which is to educate through entertainment i.e. edutainment.
2. It has to be built around Community – We will be highly rewarding collaboration and successful communication.
3. We want to make MMongoville Addictive – As opposed to pure entertainment games out there our goal is to make the Universe where kids do not realize that they actually learn a new language by playing addictive, yet educational, games. We believe that it will be even more encouraging to parents and teachers.

The Mingoville Universe offers, but not limited to, the following maps:

Shop, Disco, School (Scool), Beach, Sport, Hospital, Pier, Deserted Island, Lady Butter, Nature, Station, Café, Airport and Goose Will.

Here are a couple of earlier drawings of Mingoville avatar. Of course they look much livelier now

Mingoville Avatars

We are going to post new drawings and other exciting things as the MMO gets ready for the launch in May.

We are so excited about it!

Stephan Stephensen

Mingoville team

Hello Mingovillers,

We are so happy to announce our partnership with U.S. English Foundation Inc., one of the largest US educational foundations that promotes the role of English language, helps disseminate information on English teaching methods, sponsors educational programs and so on.

Mingoville is made available to all kids residing in the US via the Foundation.

Mr. Mauro E. Mujica, who has been the Chairman/CEO since 1993, addresses a serious problem with people not being able to speak English in the US. Quoting Mr. Mujica “Mingoville provides English instruction at any time, virtually anywhere, removing some of the most commonly cited barriers to English learning. With Mingoville, the opportunity to learn English is just a click away, and through our special partnership, free. English learners will be able to practice their English skills and take advantage of hundreds of lessons and activities at their pace and on their time, putting English acquisition within reach.”

We hope that we at Mingoville make our contribution to solving problems at this level.

Stephan Stephensen

CEO