Little Author: An Interactive Edutainment Application Designed to Assist Arab Children in Story Writing

Story writing plays a vital role in children's development as this activity expands their imagination, enhances their self-confidence, and improves their learning skills. However, children nowadays are showing obvious interest in using smartphones-a phenomenon that raises the need to digitize the traditional process of story writing in such a way that attracts and motivates child users. The challenge that the era of technology and innovation poses is that foreign applications are prevalent in children's devices, promoting foreign cultures, principles, and values that may not accord with Arabic traditions and Islamic values. Given the lack of child-oriented Arabic applications, especially educational ones, and the need to keep pace with progress and use digitized methods to hone children's skills, we developed the Little Author application. This application is intended to improve children's writing skills, promote Islamic and educational principles, and expand children's imagination and creativity through the provision of an interesting and inspiring environment. Little Author supports the concept of fun in learning by enabling children to create their own stories easily in an entertaining way. The application achieves this purpose by providing users with different backgrounds, stickers, and characters, and allowing them to add sounds to a story. Children can involve themselves in a narrative by incorporating their own photos and recording their voices as narrators. The application also affords children the ability to create their own covers and save stories in a specific library. Finally, child users can share their stories with others.