Spelling Monster » Updates

What We Have Been Up To Lately.

Tracie Davis — Tue, 06 May 2014 17:01:37 +0000

We have been working on a lot lately. Since my last update we have fixed a couple bugs, I went to my first Google conference, released a new game, and are about to release another update with a new feature and a new game. Yes, we have been busy. I love getting e-mails with comments like we love your app or my child has done better in spelling since using your app (those are my favorite). I also like getting e-mails about how to make Spelling Monster better. I am always surprised that people are surprised that I e-mail back and am a real person. Ok back to what we have been doing.

The bug fixes consisted of two things. One was a simple programming error that resulted in a huge problem. This affected sharing mainly but in extreme cases it would’t allow to select a list at all, rendering Spelling Monster useless. I do believe we lost a few people with this one. We tried our best testing on every device we had, and borrowing friend’s device’s. We would get glimpses of hope with people who really worked with us and we finally nailed it out and got it taken care of. Thank you to all of you. The second bug, we had no control over. Chevol our developer could explain it much better then me but pretty much it boiled down to tablet updates not being compatible with program used to code SM. So when they did their update we did our update fixing the black screen problem on certain Android devices. Thank you for everyones patience and support. We really appreciate it.

My first Google conference was the Google Play Playtime, which was a conference about Google Play for education. I learned a lot, but like I said this was my first one. I was a little star struck as I got to meet Chore Monster’s Chris Bergman. The panel’s were nice, a little one sided IMO but still very helpful. Hearing from the educator’s and the kids I think was the most helpful. That being said hearing what the parent’s thought was nice too. We didn’t get to stay for the happy hour part of the conference. Chev’s main job was hang issue’s and we had to get back to NC from NYC so we left as soon as the conference was over. I also got to meet a lot of other educational app creator’s. All in all it was a good time.

When we did the bug fix update I believe, we also introduced a new monster and game. So let me formally introduce to you Hank and our “Word Harvest” game. I think this is currently my favorite game. You pull up carrots with your letters on them to spell your words. It’s a fun game you should try it if you haven’t.

Now for the update about to release or will be released depending on when I finish this post and Apple finishes reviewing. By popular request apostrophe’s are now possible so you can include word contractions. This took some thought and planning to get just right. We wanted to make sure it tested well in all situation’s. So I am very pleased to say we are now including this. I love including other’s idea’s on how to make this app better. Also we will be releasing a new game and monster. I have to give Beatz favorite classroom a shout out. Thank you to Mrs Brackx 3rd grade class. They named this game’s monster for us. So without further ado meet Spike in our “Letter Angling” game. This is a fishing game. You fish for your letter’s to spell your words correctly.

In closing I would like to remind our supporters of a couple things. If you love Spelling Monster give us feedback either thru e-mail or via app store you purchased Spelling Monster. Also please be kind as it does take a little bit to resolve some issue’s. I do my best to answer e-mails with a couple hours I get them. That being said we all work full time day jobs and have families. We created Spelling Monster with our children in mind and work diligently resolving issue’s when we have them. We truly love hearing from people, the good, bad, and even the ugly. Thank for all your support.

Voice Feature Tutorial.

Tracie Davis — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 08:00:15 +0000

We had lots of requests to add a voice feature so kids could hear their words as well as see them. So we started working on this popular request. As we were working on this feature we realized that our users weren’t actually requesting the same things. Some of you wanted both sound and text, some wanted it to be left how it was, and some wanted just sound and no text. Our solution to this was to create a toggle in the “Settings” section.

1. Access voice feature options under settings. You have a few different options you may choose. If you select both “Use Audible Words” and “Show Words”, you will have both voice and text in the game HUD. If you select just “Use Audible Words” you will only have the option of sound in the game HUD. If you would like to just show the text in the game HUD just select “Show Words”.

2. Ok now that you have selected the options you would like, back out back to the home screen. Select “Words” and go to “Create/Edit”

3. From here you name your list as usual. I will name my list Fruit and save my list name.

4. Ok from here you can start adding your words. I add the word “Apple”. To attach sound to the word simply hit the blue record icon and speak the word into your devices microphone.

5. Once you have spoken the word hit the “Stop” icon. If you would like to confirm what was recorded simply tap the green “Play” icon.

If you don’t like your initial recording you may rerecord your word.

6.Once you are happy with the recording of your word tap the yellow “Add” icon.

7. Once you have saved your word and it is added to your word list it will have a “Sound” icon.

Holiday Updates.

Tracie Davis — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 14:13:27 +0000

First I would like to say thank you to all our supporters. Hope everyone that celebrates Thanksgiving had a good one, for everyone who doesn’t I hope you enjoyed your day. We have reached almost 25,000 downloads, and wouldn’t have without you. We had a great turn out for our Thanksgiving and Black Friday sale. It is so awesome to wake up, check analytics and see numbers in the thousands for the day. We were going to offer Spelling Monster free for Christmas and the day after but we received an e-mail from Apple stating that would be shut down more or less those days so no go. Don’t worry we are discussing other dates. I have to admit though I am really disappointed about this. We are undecided as whether to run it free on amazon for those days still.

Ok, on to what we are working on. We are trying to have an update before Christmas. Depending on your persecutive it will be big or small. For us and a lot of requesters it will be big. This update will have the voice feature added, so you will be able to hear the word as well as see it. We are hoping to also include a practice test, and 2 games, but times a ticking and we are still working on the voice feature. It’s usually easy for us buckle down when we get off work and work on Spelling Monster in the winter, it’s cold and gets dark so early. Except the holiday’s, where it’s really difficult. So much is going on with family and our children. So progress has slowed, but don’t worry if the practice test and 2 games don’t make it in this update they will be on the next update in January/February. We have had a decent amount of our user’s to upgrade to 2.0 but not everybody. You guys don’t know what you’re missing it’s a great update, with lots of UI upgrades. Ok well this is kinda of a short update. I think I am going to try shorter updates more often and see it goes. Hope everyone has a great holiday.

2.0 Update

Tracie Davis — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:00:18 +0000

So excited for the 2.0 update thats about to release for Spelling Monster. We are awaiting Apples approval. When it came down to it we had to shorten our wish list for this update, so we could get an update out there. That being said we are still very proud of this update. So what has changed or been added?
We updated the user interface throughout Spelling Monster, starting with our icon. It’s a little funner I think. Once you are in the app there are lots of great changes. We changed the home screen some but kept the simplicity. From the home screen you have three choices, add words, play games, or the new and improved parent gate.

Though the home screen has a new look and feel it still functions the same. Just as before you will go to words name your list and enter your words, but you will notice a change here as well. You will notice a “Share Lists” and “Get Lists” button. This is for teachers and parents with multiple students. Teacher’s or parent’s can create a spelling list and share it with there students or multiple children. This feature does require an internet connection. No data is taken or recorded this is completely secure with its only purpose to share spelling lists. A simple rundown of how it works. After you list is created tap the “Share Lists” button. Have your students or children on their individual devices press “Get Lists“ and voila teachers have shared their spelling lists with their students.

Now under our “Play” button. You will notice the map of Spelltopia has changed. Same fun games with a new feel. Follow the trail around and you will notice a new game, Lighthouse Letters and monster named Trapper. We have new pause and end screens.
Now on to our “Parent Gate”. To access parent area simply press the gear down for three seconds. Behind the parent gate parents will be able to access their children’s stats. No changes in statistics. You will also be able to access “Settings” here. Settings is where you are able to choose game difficulty, and upper and lowercase. Also under the parent gate section you will find the”About Us”, “Feedback”, and “Rate The App”. Nothing has changed in these areas other than putting them behind the parent gate.

We also have a few bug fixes in this update. For our Android devices we fixed the back button misunderstanding. So now hitting your on device back button won’t exit you out of the app. An on all platforms we are fairly certain we fixed the issue that only some devices seemed to experience with not being able to select a list after a certain number of lists were entered. Honestly this bug has been a huge challenge. There was no rhyme or reason this was happening and it wasn’t happening on every device but its randomness was happening across multiple platforms. We had one IOS user, two Kindle users, and one Android user contact us, I can only imagine how many didn’t. Please contact us we can’t try and fix what we aren’t told about.
We already have things in place to begin working on our next update. Some buzz on the next update? A voice feature with practice test by popular request. Thank you to all of our users that give us constructive criticism. Also a new monster and game will be added to Spelltopia’s map.

We hope your kids enjoy this update as much as our kids.

Updates We Are Working On.

Tracie Davis — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 11:00:34 +0000

We have a lot going on in the past couple weeks, besides me better learning how to market Spelling Monster. Hmm… Where to begin?

By teacher request we have been working on two new features. First adding a voice feature, and second adding a syncing feature. At first with the voice feature we were unsure how to incorporate it, for now what I believe we have decided is to add voice to the practice test I have spoke of in previous posts. When you add your words in the beginning you will add the sound using the microphone feature on the keyboard. The practice test will say the word to you, the text area above will be blank unlike in the games. When you type the word it will appear in the above text box. With this we are hoping to simulate when the teacher calls out your words during testing. For our syncing feature we have had a few teachers request being able to add the classroom spelling words to a master device and have their students be able to access the list in the classroom. Syncing was our solution. A teacher can share their lists on a secure server and their students can connect to that server and get their spelling lists.

In some other exciting news we have also partnered up with a designer. As a result we have been completely overhauling Spelling Monster graphically. I could not have imagined the impact a designer would have. It has been like Christmas. To see what he created off what we had is just amazing. It’s crazy really, we had worked hard with our limited experience with graphics and I think we did pretty good under the circumstance, but then a designer touches it with their blessed hands and this magic happens that turns to mediocre to awesome. In our next update we will have all new graphics and new user interface. We are so excited about these changes. Please keep checking back for updates.

Trial and Error

Tracie Davis — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 11:00:31 +0000

This weeks blog post is mostly about editing and/or deleting a word or word list. First off let me start by saying yes you can delete a word or a word list by simply swiping left to right on the word or wordlist you want to edit or delete. You should then see a delete button appear on the right hand side of the row, tap that and you should get a confirmation that it has been deleted. We chose this approach because in my head I thought it to be an obvious universal since that is how you delete an e-mail on your phone. Boy was I wrong, I guess in hind sight of coarse it made sense in my head but that doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination was it as obvious as I thought. There are so many reasons now why I realize how naive I was in this approach. Not that it is not an acceptable way to handle the action but I needed to have added a tutorial letting my users know how to use all features of Spelling Monster. Not just assume that they would just know. This will be something that will be addressed in the not too distant future. I would say the only benefit to this was being able to interact with some our parents out there when they e-mailed to ask how to edit and/or delete. This being the case because not only would they ask how to edit or delete. More times than not they have made suggestions which we try our best to include in our app. One example being a choice between upper and lower case letters. For our parents that go to www.spellingmonster.com I have added this to our FAQ page until we come up with our solution.

Second part of this blog post is… So we got the ever dreaded 1 star rating from one well two of our parents. The issue for me is I wish there was a way I could contact them directly, not to argue why with them but to get more info so we can make our app better. The issues? The couple concerns I read was in our free version. We had a full ad at initial launch. We did research found an ad company that had COPPA compliant ads tested didn’t have any issues on our couple devices and no problems, but a parent noticed that one of the ads loaded was for a non age appropriate game and gave us 1 star, I understand being upset I would be as well. I just wish they contacted us and gave us a chance to rectify the situation. We have since removed the ads completely in our free version. So I hope this parent gives us another chance but I know this is unlikely. Our other issue that needs to be fixed. To one parent it appeared that the free version had no actual games and was just a plug for our paid version. They downloaded our app passed our ad at initial launch. Added there words to choose the first game the text balloon comes up saying that game is a premium game, ok so I have to assume now annoyed mildly that go to the next game and… another premium game. They don’t make it any further, by now their as I would be, annoyed, enough to say forget it and assume that all the games are like that… So as a result we are working on a new way to display our games so it is more obvious as to which games are, um active we will say.

At the end of the day we want Spelling Monster to be the best we can make it. The best way to do that is listen to our user base. So please feel free to contact us directly at info@spellingmonster.com with any questions, comments, suggestions, or concerns. We love to hear from you.

Spelling Monster Updates

Tracie Davis — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:00:36 +0000

Hello everyone,

Just an update to let everyone know what we have been doing. We have been working hard and are now in the Apple Store and Google Play Store. We are awaiting approval for Amazons store which will take care of our kindle users. We are excited to say that Spelling Monster is available on the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad. As well as Android phones and tablets. Hats off to our development team for all the hard work! Not only has that gotten done, currently our development team is working on two new games for Spelling Monster. The first game we are working on is a twist on the traditional word scramble. The word scramble will be a drag and drop style game with wooden tiles. I have to say it’s so much fun to watch a game come alive from an idea. Our second game we are working on is a driving game. As you collect your letters to spell your word you have to avoid traffic, and wrong letters. With new games comes new monsters to explore Spelltopia with.

On the marketing side of things we have been working hard getting our name out there. We have been pushing promo codes on review sites, working the forums, and spreading the Spelling Monster word. So far we have had a mini feature on the iPhone Moms “Friday Findings” this past friday. I can’t wait for more reviews to come in. We have submitted a lot, and now we play the waiting game. Depending on the site the wait is anywhere from three weeks to ten months. I had no idea that some would be quite so backed up. Though marketing is one of the most important things, its one of the things we struggle with most. That being said we are having fun rising to the challenge.

This summer we will be working with a couple teachers from one of our daughters schools on the teacher side of things. Not to mention more games and monsters.So check back regularly for updates. Thanks!

What is Spelling Monster?

Tracie Davis — Mon, 27 May 2013 11:00:23 +0000

This is a write up on what Spelling Monster is and how to use this app. So what is Spelling Monster? Simply put, Spelling Monster is a spelling app for kids, where kids learn their spelling words while playing fun games. As kids play the games, they will learn without even realizing it. Our games are engaging and fun for kids to play.

WORDS:

From the Home screen press the Words button. Then you will be prompted to name your spelling list. Finally you will add your words to that list. Your list can have as many words as you want, and each word can be up to 15 letters long. Once you have finished adding the words that you want on to your list, then use the back arrow button to back out until you reach the home screen. Once you have a word list, then you can play games using that list.

GAMES:

From the Home screen press the Games button. Now you are at our game world menu, “Spelltopia”. From here you have few current game choices (more coming soon). Each spelling game is attached to a monster icon. So, as you explore Spelltopia, i.e. play games, you can meet each of the monsters. On spellingmonster.com you can find a detailed description of each monster and its game.

PARENTAL STATISTICS:

From the home screen, at the bottom left is the parental statistics button. The parental statistics allows parents to check the progress that your child is making. When you press the statistics icon, the first screen you come to is the list stats.

List stats track basic stats about each list:

How many words are in each list.
How many times each list was played.
Last date each list was played.
Length of time the list as a whole was played.

The next screen you’ll see is the words stats screen. From here you can track:

How many times each word was played.
Last date each word was played.
Percent correct – note the only current game that tracks percent correct is the Missing Letter game.

The final stat screen tracks game stats. The game stats track:

The games played
Yes/No correct
Last date played

MORE:

From the home screen, on the bottom right corner you will find the more button. This button is where you will find things like the about us, leave feedback (please do we love to hear how we can make our app better), rate our app, and settings. Settings is where you can turn on and off the background music and the sound effects. Coming soon – Star count for all other games.

We at hope that you found this write up informative and helpful. Remember, we at Spelling Monster are committed to building strong minds one game at a time.

Welcome to Spelling Monster

admin — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:38:47 +0000

Welcome to our new home!

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome everybody to the home of Spelling Monster. We have many surprises and updates in store for you guys so stay tuned and make sure you follow us on twitter and facebook.

We are also in the process of looking for Beta testers for both Android and iOS, sorry no tablets at this time. Feel free to use the contact us page to drop us a line. If your interested in Beta testing please include your device(Android,iOS), make and model and we will get in touch with you shortly.

With all that business out of the way, we would like to tell you a little about ourselves. We are a small development team(husband and wife) with 2 children. We have watched our children use the other various spelling tools out there and thought to ourselves, we might be able to do a little better. So here we are, our main goal is to make it easy and fun for kids to learn and practice their spelling words. We have come up with a number of fun and interactive games that we think your kids will enjoy playing. But we are not just all about fun and games…

See behind the scenes, Spelling Monster also collects stats that we think teachers and parents would like to keep track of. Combine this with the ability to add your own words and lists, and we now have a powerful learning tool.

Here are just a few stats:

What words they need help with
How long they play each game
How many times they have practiced each word
How many times they have practiced each list
How many times they got the word right/wrong

With this information you can adjust lists to focus on the words that they need help with. Teachers you can use this information to adjust your lesson plans and test preparation.

This is just a small introduction to the things we are doing, so please check back frequently to see what else we have in store. If you have any ideas or features you would like to see, feel free to use the contact us/feedback form and let us know.

Thanks,

- Spelling Monster Team