Happy new year and welcome to my new educational app review blog!In the coming year(s), I am excited to see how we as parents, educators, designers, and researchers will continue to incorporate the use of mobile technology to help educate our young children. With this blog, I hope to contribute to our knowledge on this topic by reviewing apps for children ages 3 to 8 that have been labelled as "educational" and evaluating them strictly for their educational value.
Just a quick guide to this blog - Up top are a couple of tabs: 1) "About this blog" gives you a little more info about what my goals are; and 2) "The Ratings" explain how I've come up with my scoring system for rating the apps.
Why am I qualified? I received my doctorate in developmental psychology and have been working as an educational media researcher for several years. To learn more about my research, please visit my website.
I hope that you will find these reviews as helpful to you as I have found doing them.
Best,
Cynthia
Have an app you'd like reviewed? Put it in the comments!
I'd love to see a review of our Doodlecast for Kids app.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tickletapapps.com/doodlecast
Thanks Jason - it's on the list!
ReplyDeleteAre you only reviewing educational apps? There is a game that my son (4) loves on my iPad and it really challenges his logical thinking. It is called Where's my Water?
ReplyDeleteBrian - Yes, I'm sticking to educational apps only, but I will take a look at Where's my Water and see if it fits. Thanks for the suggestion!
ReplyDeleteOne of my apps, "Drop Drops", was developed as a casual game, but it has really caught on with the toddler crowd--possibly due to the colors and sounds. It's easy for young kids to play, especially on an iPad. In addition, the ability to play the same board over and over creates a challenge to better your score--or to pass it to your parents and have them try to beat your score. We've spent some evenings passing the iPad around the family with everyone trying to up each other's scores. Give it a look. The first 10 boards are free on iTunes: http://www.woofsystems.net/DropDrops
ReplyDeleteThanks Andy! I will definitely give it a look.
DeleteHi, Cynthia. Jacob and Toni Rhodes created a simple but engaging iPhone/iPad app based on my story But That Wasn't The Best Part. This is a "predictable" story that helps beginning readers with optional sound effects and narration. The story appears for free on www.meddybemps.com. The app is available through iTunes. Worth a look, I promise.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jerry - I'll definitely take a look and will let you know if/when the review comes out.
DeleteIt would be really helpful if you specified in your reviews if the games are for Droid or Mac products or both. I love the idea of this site, thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion! I've added that label in now - as you'll see, they are all for macs... as that is what I have. I'll work on getting access to a Droid too.
DeleteFabulous! Thanks! I love my Droid phone, but I do find it seems to be harder to find apps for kids that are as good at the ones for Mac. And it is so hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.
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