Eish!!: Wowturf - Parents take note

Wowturf has been around for a good couple of months. It's surprised me how little traction that it's got, so Eish!! is going to see if we can help them out.

What is Wowturf? Perhaps half the problem is in the name. I don't see the link between what it is and the name it's been given, perhaps it's just me. Nevertheless, I digress.
Wowturf is a resource for anyone who has ever needed to try and entertain children for anything longer than five minutes. In their own words " WowTurf is a virtual reality, educational locus where adults can explore exciting things to do with kids of all ages."
The idea is to help parents find activities they can do with their children. They have crafts(projects), restaurants that are kid-centric, birthday party venues and my favourite, but oddly named "To Do" category. The latter being venues and activities the whole family can enjoy, not things the webmaster still wants to add to the website.

While it is obviously focussed on South African venues (in fact seems to be dominated by Cape Town based activities, but Eish!! readers are going to change that right?!) the projects can be useful to any parent anywhere in the world, especially on those cold, wintery days when the children start getting irritated with being couped up inside. It could also be a great resource to those overseas visitors w to check out before coming to South Africa.

Anyone can add ideas and venues, so do your fellow parents, and the website hosts, a favour and add your foolproof ideas.

This could grow into a fantastic resource.

Link : http://www.wowturf.org

Labels: children, eish, parents, things to do

Posted by eishman on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 8:14 AM | Permalink

About Me

eishman
Cape Town, Western Cape, ZA

I am just a normal Joe Shmo sharing my views, web travels, experiences and gems I have found with you all. Of course the focus is on the Motherland, South Africa, with a bit of bias towards Cape Town, from time to time.

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Cool link. We use a website in the UK called entertainthekids.co.uk. It's really good. Some of the links it offers are for subscribers only, but for £1 a month, it's not asking much. If you don't want to subscribe, there's still plenty to gain from this website. So all you UK readers with children, it's definitely worth having a look.
Eish Sis

Posted by The Micks | May 23, 2007 at 11:15 AM

Hi Eish

We have been Googling and have come across your post. If we may, allow us to try and throw a little more light on WowTurf for everyone.

What is in the name? – WowTurf is designed to be multifaceted and to deliver educational needs and wants across various global levels. The cyber space which one surfs and interacts with is the Turf and the sites educational delivery is truly “Wow” when one starts to dig in and see what it has to offer.

Hang about, as we will get to explain what the offerings are and it will amaze you as to how diverse a site WowTurf really is!

On the icon and colours – clearly the book is representative of education and the colours are indicative of absolutely zero barriers.

Who is behind WowTurf? – primarily two South Africans and an American working across their virtual border posts are the ongoing source of energy behind this global project. Our so called day jobs involve global trading, IT and design but anyone with input is always welcome to contact us.

Lloyd Neilson – www.globalrealsource.com
Gareth Bowers – www.overdrive.co.za
Adam Beasely – www. visualalchemy.net

Why are you embarking on such a journey? - One gets to a stage in one life where the need to put something back into society starts to beg, for us, this need was to tackle global education, so we put our heads together and WowTurf was the final result.

Although we may not be able to offer millions in funding for educational needs, as other philanthropist type organizations can right now, we knew that we could offer something much more valuable – our time - and this would lead to such an output.

We also knew that along this path we would be able to meet many other educational needs. It was then just down to some really hard sweat (no tears) and sacrificing those personal hours. The challenge was accepted and we took the first steps toward the final goal - global upliftment, through education

So what does WowTurf offer? – WowTurf is currently both a wonderful teacher, student, resource, and a little later it will also become a funding entity.

Moms and dads, grannies, grandpa’s, child minders, friends and more can subscribe to WowTurf in order to receive free updates. This feedback allows users to be kept up to date on projects to do, and places to go – TOGETHER. Herein lies a not so obvious and perhaps somewhat hidden teacher’s key.

The pace of life is changing the way we interact with children and others; as a result we are losing many global qualities. WowTurf is not here to dictate what these may be, as for each individual these are very different, but one example from our book would be the preservation of cultures, the list though is really endless. Simply, through adult/child interaction one is able to pass on intricate learning’s of life’s experiences, many of which one would not find in a book or electronic interactive device.

Another, more easily identifiable teaching key, is the actual interactivity with the site by educational institutions and others from both a front and back end perspective. This may be in the form of writing skills where teachers have students write up holiday travels and places they went to, stories other parents may want to read to their children, what projects they did or games they played. This may then be followed by information technology sessions, digital photography and video, different file formats, dynamic fields, sharing of information, ratings and comments, country/region specifics, invites, basic editing commands and so on. There is truly a mass to learn in this area alone due to the unique site interactivity offered. Even marketing schools may include sessions where they wish to pursue building of advertising slots and sponsorships for the site.

Individuals must not forget that they may also interact with the site and upload their content. This will be more often the case with businesses wanting to make their products or services known. The criteria, children and adults must be able to interact together through the use of this service or product offered and such interaction must allow for some form of learning, otherwise it will not be allowed into the site.

WowTurf is also a wonderful resource for those looking for something to do with children and think they have perhaps run out of ideas or places to go. Or as Eish!! correctly points out, a resource for overseas travelers wishing to visit a particular country and find things to do. The site is filtered from global projects/things to do down to specifics for each country/region/city or town. Cape Town has been setup to give teachers an idea as to what is possible within the site as this is the sites first area of focus – teaching institutions.

As the site is incorporated into school curriculums as a teaching/learning aid then naturally the content will follow and the resourcefulness to the basic end user will grow too. At this end we will then launch the final phase of the project and possibly the most wanted by the more basic user of the site – educational funding.

Educational funding is not going to follow global norms and the site truly has something unique to offer here once again. What is it? We’ll, to be honest, we would rather keep that one under our hats for now and allow focus to be on teaching aids. What we will tell you though is that the more that people interact and use the site, the greater the end product they create for themselves.

Advertising blocks will also be found in the site, these are offered free to those that actively participate in the site and contribute towards education.

And where is WowTurf now? – currently we are now writing up materials to start to create awareness in schools and amongst individuals, across the globe, to use the site as a teaching/learning aid. Even China and India are already showing interest!

On feedback and support – WowTurf takes end user feedback very seriously and will listen closely to the global communities’ needs, wants and general comments. Eish!!, point taken and thank you. “To Do” category is now replaced with WowFun and has also combined with another category for simplicity and clarity.

A number of stumbling blocks have, and do continually need to be overcome, but we have never allowed these to stop the overall momentum of the project. Anyone operating a site that is in its infancy with high levels of interactivity will understand the hours of work that go into same – feedback on bugs and other areas is needed to help fine tune and polish the corners, as we simply cannot do this alone.

We truly feel we are doing and have done our bit for the global community – it is now up this community to help follow through. And when one does engage with WowTurf one cannot help but feel good about getting involved – because it becomes a passion.

Warmest regards
The WowTurf Team