Huffington Post – Julie Dobrow
I’m in the grocery store and see a scene I see more and more: a harried young parent hands her phone to the fidgety toddler sitting in the shopping cart. “Here, play Abby Monkey!” says mom. Abby Monkey: First Phonics and Letter Sounds School Adventure ranked #4 on Amazon’s 2014 list of best selling “educational apps” for kids. Sounds pretty good, right? Fun and educational, what could be better?
It turns out that there is a large and brewing debate over just what constitutes “educational” when it comes to apps, and whether there need to be more clearly guided ways of rating or evaluating this issue.
Do a Google search for “best apps for kids” and you get about 308,000,000 results. Searching for “educational apps for kids” yields a mere 58,300,000 results. There are well over 1300 “educational apps” on the iTunes store listings — and that’s just mobile apps — and over 8700 “educational apps and games” for children listed on Amazon.com. How are parents, caregivers and teachers ever to sort through these choices in thoughtful and meaningful ways?
Increasing numbers of well-respected and research-based organizations have started to tackle these issues. But no consensus has yet emerged about just what criteria should be used in evaluating mobile apps.
The Fred Rogers Center framework emphasizes that apps should be “designed for active engagement by and among users.” They suggest that content should be “grounded in specific goals,” that platforms and methods used should be “intentional” and that quality digital media for young children should encourage “joint engagement” by children with their parents, teachers, caregivers or older siblings.
Researchers at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center agree that evaluating apps should be done on the basis of developmental appropriateness, seeing whether apps have a balance of features, sustainability that can keep a child engaged, a variety of levels and types of rewards kids are offered within their play, and at least the potential for parental involvement when a child is playing with an app.
Warren Bucklietner, founder of the Children’s Technology Review, has written for NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) that it’s important to consider the child when selecting an app. He agrees that apps must be developmentally appropriate, neither too hard nor too easy, not commercial, be free of gender and ethnic bias and have good production values.
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
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