PhoneticExplorer

Basic idea

A phonetics toy, allowing children basic exposure to sounds of the world's languages, via the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA - [[1]]).

The IPA symbols are displayed; user can click on a symbol and hear it pronounced.

sounds are organized into rows (e.g. nasals) and columns (e.g. bilabials) and other categories
hover mouse over a symbol to see its full name
click on a symbol to hear it pronounced (in context?)
double-click a symbol to add it to your "tray" at the bottom of the screen
click a "play" button next to the tray to play the sounds of the tray in sequence
save your tray contents to the journal, tagged as "phonetic words" or something. Tagged as "words", "phonetic"
- could integrate to word list building, dictionary building, etc.

There is far more information that *could* be displayed than will fit on the screen.
- Scroll it? OK, if necessary.
- Display the broadest categories only, and drill down to get to the symbols? Not great for exploring.
- Display only most common symbols on main page, and drill down for less-common symbols?
Finding reliable quality, copyright-unencumbered sound recordings
- Wikipedia seems to provide recordings in GNU Free Doc License; is the quality good, across the board?
What does sharing mean in this activity?

Copy an existing activity like TamTamMini to make a grid of symbols linked to sounds
Set up a few (half a dozen) sounds with symbols, names, sounds, grid layout. Start with consonants. Then vowels. Maybe never diacritics & suprasegmentals (until Graphite is ported to the XO?).
User testing with children
Fill in the gaps
Release early and often (as soon as presentable): don't get bogged down in comprehensiveness, complexity and advanced features
Explore sharing ... share the tray?
- Go see what sharing looks like in other, similar activities. How do you avoid fighting over navigation control? First one in gets control?