These are exciting times for apps. We are seeing more conferences, mergers, deals, and fanfare associated with businesses that are focused on apps for kids. As apps gain mainstream media attention, I would like to put on my critical thinking hat, and suggest that we stop for a moment of contemplation.
It’s quite possible that many products touted as educational apps are nothing more than interactive entertainment.
For the past year, our indie developer community brought apps to your attention while highlighting their educational potential. However, there is a BIG difference between recognizing potential and making claims – especially when dealing with products for children. So when I see popularity rise with articles in New York Times, NPR, Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly, etc. – I get a little nervous. Saying that interactive digital media is “good for kids”, or that there is such a thing as a “best app”, are still premature statements without context or research to back it up. At least NPR included some counterpoints.
To clarify one of the roles of Moms With Apps, what we (or maybe it’s just me) want to do is advocate and explore healthy intersections of kids and technology. We are at a position where the iPad is showing solid potential as an educational tool, and many developers are running experiments on the app store to test out those theories. But conclusions have not been drawn. Long term studies have not been completed. And I still don’t see many app development teams including teachers and educators directly within their development process.
YOU, as the consumer, have the responsibility to think critically whenever new media or content is put in front of your child. Now is the time to dust off your report card and ask the tough questions, before the trendy momentum of consumer culture takes over.
So when we read sentences in articles that look like this: “There’s a whole new way to read your kids to sleep these days — or to distract them while you are trying to get something done”, I say: I still define “reading” via traditional print books, and my purpose in using an iPad is NOT to distract my kids – it’s to enable them with new learning tools. Yuck, media, you should be ashamed.
This blog, this domain, and this community is focused on collaborative parent/child involvement, furthered educational goals, and specific ways we can use the iPad as a learning tool. It will take some effort – and I’m not a fan of promoting apps just because they are high in popularity.
If we are going to move this community forward, it needs to be done in a manner that challenges us to think like the critical problem solvers we want our children to become. You might notice me veering away from my traditional enthusiastic support of app developers, to a more constructive evaluation of their methods and goals. I’m going to raise more questions. For example:
- If an app is listed in Apple’s “educational” category, is it listing the corresponding educational goals? Or, is it making general claims? Be prepared to reclassify any apps that don’t back themselves up as “entertainment until proven educational”. If you’d like an opinion on the app, ask the child’s teacher.
- If an app is listed in Apple’s “book” category, think about whether it’s actually a book, or an app. Can you turn pages, or press buttons, or play movies, or all of the above? Are the features helping your child’s literacy? How does your child follow along and respond to reading comprehension questions? Did the engagement increase the comprehension? Again, if you’d like an opinion on the app, ask the child’s teacher.
- If you feel the price of an app seems high, ask the developer why. How do they feel it stacks up to the rest? Why is it special? What are you more interested in – the production quality, or the educational quality? Contact information for all developers is listed directly within the iTunes app store description of a particular app.
- Who was involved in making the app? Ex-gamers, UI experts, teachers, parents, programmers, students, graphic artists? Was it planned out in advance, or invented on the fly? What is the app trying to accomplish? What is next in their series? What are their goals as an app development team? Why are they interested in creating products for kids?
Two years ago I took on the task of creating my own iPhone and iPad apps. Moms With Apps grew so much that I delayed my personal app development. However, to be consistent with my position, I’ve reviewed my app descriptions on iTunes, adjusted my pricing, and made sure I was delivering a straightforward message. All I can claim right now is that my apps were an experiment. They might have educational potential down the line, if I decide to take app development more seriously, but in the meantime, they are an unproven, interactive form of digital entertainment for kids.
Written by Lorraine Akemann, Editor, Moms With Apps
Lorraine, You hit the nail right on the head. I have spent money on countless “educational apps” to use in speech therapy which turn out to be little more than glorified “touch and watch”. I’m developing my own app right now that requires adult input and guidance and although I think that’s really the way to go I’m afraid it won’t sell as well as the ones that just make a lot of noise.
Thanks! Well written and worth thinking about….
Excellent article, Lorraine. If it makes you feel any better, I have noticed this movement in so-called “educational” toys and dvds, where they allow a parent to pretend that they are educating their child when they plunk them down in front of the TV.
There is nothing wrong with kids just plain having fun, by the way. That is their job, and I don’t need to work out what the specific learning outcome my girls are developing with their current favourite outdoors game of grinding sidewalk chalk through a plastic badminton racket to form “rainbow dust”.
I find it somewhat irritating that a cute, jangly toy for babies has the need for box copy extolling all its points of learning. Textures! Colours! Sounds! Smiley faces! Familiar tunes! Cause and effect! You know what else has those things? The rest of the world! The dialogue between the parent and the child is where the learning resides. And a toddler can just plain enjoy hitting the happy flowers and hearing them go DING!
I was looking for a maths app recently for my daughter, who is 6 and a half and needs to work on her family of facts. It took a suprisingly long time to find one that suited, with the “right” balance of fun, encouragement to continue on, as well as looking nice and having the right level of content. The educational section of the app store is horrible to browse, as you know, and has hardly any stated educational goals in any app descriptions. (I used to work in learning media, computer based training, and stated learning objectives and goals are absolutely critical – otherwise, how do you know what you’re aiming for?)
Rant over.
PS: We liked Math Bingo in the end – Bella loves the bingo bugs you uncover and collect.
This is something I’m concerned about with our kids – I want them to be tech savvy (although I probably don’t need to work at that, it would be impossible to avoid), and while I really want them to experience ‘real’ books, for example, I recognize that they will probably use an e-reader much sooner than we would have dreamed of just a few years ago.
But you’re right – this is all so new that there isn’t good data on the impact it has on kids. It’s important to remember, for example, the claims made about ‘edutainment’ videos for babies – not only have the claims discredited, TV watching in under-twos has been demonstrated to be detrimental.
Was parenting this complicated when we were kids?!?!? 🙂
Thank-you Lorraine!
I couldn’t have put it better myself. We have taken longer to launch our apps that predicted purely because of the rigourous process we are going through to ensure their educational benefits and overall value to the little brains who will be using them.
Cheers
Justine
Too much of any ONE thing can never be good. Moms listen to your hearts, and allow your precious little one to explore a range of things. In all that we do…keep God first.
Val
This is such an open, honest, and “reality check” article. We strive to make our apps educational and fun. Since they are an extension of our in-class/in-community programs we were very excited to enter into the app market for accessibility. We definitely feel frustration sometimes by the claims of other companies or parents wondering where the educational value is within an app. I think it helps to put an age range on apps as kids learning happens in stages so putting the educational value into context helps – and social skills fall within this framework. Our content is built from educators, environmentalist, park rangers so we felt very confident making claims – now we just need to build that confidence to make as much noise as some of the other companies! Until then, we’ll see you on the trail looking under rocks, turning over leaves, and stretching in the sunshine to motivate kids into the great outdoors.
Wonderful questions to ask ourselves about educational apps for our own children. I have, however, found that most of the teachers in my child’s school have little or no experience with apps, making it difficult for them to weigh in on these decisions. I have met so many digitally literate educators through Twitter, though, & hope that more sites like http://www.iear.org and http://www.commonsensemedia.org will provide reviews for parents to get a 2nd opinion about individual apps ‘educational’ claims. I don’t review education apps on my site precisely because of the questions you raised, but these two sites in particular do a good job.
In my review experience at http://www.digital-storytime.com, I’ve found many books that aren’t just apps or toys, but it takes some digging – these titles are rarely at the top of the charts, a fact that discourages me. I give good reviews to a variety of books in the App Store, but my personal favorites are the ones with the fewest distractions & engaging storytelling. Thankfully they are also my child’s favorites to re-read. 🙂
Lorraine, thanks for writing these thoughts. It’s clear from the articles you cite that the race is on to provide ever more engaging and entertaining apps. Deep-pocketed developers are moving in to the app market and re-purposing their established print stories by adding multimedia and interactivity. While I’m impressed by the efforts, I want to believe there’s room for simple, modern stories that have an educational point to make.
We at Pointed Stories created “Loris and the Runaway Ball” so that caregivers can sit down with their young ones and enjoy a story about little Loris who loses her ball across the street and must find safe ways to retrieve it. The three choices we offer the child each lead to a short branch which models a different positive behavior. By giving the child the chance to make choices and explore their consequence, we are trying to equip their minds with ideas for how they might behave in real life, hopefully in a more safe manner. We hope that our cuddleware, priced this week at a dollar, can start some valuable conversations.
Good reminder that we all need to be educated consumers, whether we are parents, educators, therapists… It is important to think of what you really want your child/student to learn, and then explore the app fully thinking of the skills, abilities and interests of your child/student. If there is a good fit, then it may be a good app for them, if not, keep searching. There are so many lists of “good” or “suggested” apps there but that is just a starting point. Some of us in education/assistive technology are working on considerations that will help find that just right fit. This is especially important when for children with special needs.
Nice and interesting article Lorraine! Thanks !