How Educational Apps can Impact our Kids' Education

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Back to School is definitely on the way and Fun Educational Apps look even more appealing for us parents. Mobile technologies and iDevices offer new and exciting opportunities for our children. Educational Apps provide fun learning on an ongoing basis. Downloading fun educational apps on iPod, iPhone or iPad is highly recommended and we at Fun Educational Apps strongly believe that iDevices such as the iPad can really change the way our children learn. The technology is still fairly new but the use of mobile devices will continue to increase over the coming months and years with the development of new products such as the new iPod Touch in September, the new Wii Tablet and the introduction of the new PSP from Sony.

New fun and interactive educational apps are being introduced every day by really great designers and developers. Today, I would like to share with you some of Lynn Ramussen views on how Fun Educational Apps can impact our kids’ education. Lynn Ramussen is parent, app developer, and creator of 2 great math apps: Arithmaroo and MathGirl Number Garden.  

How the use of Educational Apps can benefit our kids  

 “Apps offer an entirely new medium for education. App developers have only scratched the surface of what’s possible. Just as Wikipedia and Google have changed how people get information, apps can change how people learn.

Apps have the capacity to offer inexpensive, individualized, engaging, and efficient learning experiences. Tested in the marketplace, they succeed only if they are easy to use, enjoyed, and recommended.  In contrast, traditional classroom settings encounter challenges and limitations that make evolution difficult.”

Educational Apps are becoming more and more complex and interactive and bring great additions to our kids’ education. 

According to Lynn Ramussen

Educational Apps offer the following

Customized and Progressive Navigation

A well designed educational app can act as a game where “you advance as you master a level. It allows children to adapt their learning according to their needs, if “a game is poorly designed, or if it’s too hard or too easy, you simply find another, better game.”  

From Top-Down Systems to Self-Organizing Networks

Educational apps allow “kids to empower themselves.” Children can go at their own pace. “Thousands of individual apps meet the particular needs of particular users. It’s possible to envision how apps might compliment a teacher’s instruction, enabling a teacher to become more of a curator of knowledge rather than a student’s sole source of instruction.”

From System-Centric vs. User-Centric

Educational apps offer flexibility. “You can play an app whenever and wherever you want. It’s there for you when you get back to it. It can track where you left off. You progress at your own speed and determine your own level of difficulty.  You can always replay to get it right.”

From Learning as Work to Learning as Play

Our society is changing and game is taking big role. It is now acceptable to have fun while learning and an array of educational games have been developed to support learning. As Lynn says, “As we move from the traditional systems of work into new evolving systems, we need to play. Great design requires play. Play helps us open up, connect, discover, and create.  With apps, learning can be diverse, expansive, engaging, and fun."

From Mass Assessment to User Feedback

“The education system decides exactly what and when students learn. Teachers sometimes remain in the system whether they are effective or not.  Massive corporate testing can be an underlying presence throughout the school year.

The educational iApp Market offers choice and variety. “If an app doesn’t work for you, you find another app that will. If it plays well and if it adds value to your life, you support it. You and other players rate and recommend apps to others. Users provide immediate feedback to app developers. Good developers respond with revisions and with new, more effective apps. The feedback of the market, the users, drives the system.”

In Conclusion

Are fun educational apps beneficial to our kids learning? 

Educational apps offer tremendous potential to our kids’ as well as the education system. Don’t think that apps are just fun games; educational apps can be great resources. Be selective with your choice of apps and select the best educational apps that some developers such as Lynn Ramussen have to offer. Keep your kids interest in mind and choose what is right for them.

For great resources make sure to subscribe to Fun Educational Apps and visit Momswithapps - a group of family-friendly developers who share best practices on making and marketing mobile apps.

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Remember, many kids will see the iDevices as a gaming device, but with our help they can get much more out of it. Help them use it for more things than just games and music and download Fun Educational Apps for them.

Comments

[Mia Wenjen]

I think math apps are a great way to get kids to learn math, particularly math facts. The apps are also not expensive and portable. Great for killing time while waiting at a restaurant for your food, for example!

[Nathalie van Ee]

You are right Mia, math apps can really help them and playing math while waiting for the food is a great fun way to wait.

[Ziggy]

thanks for some ideas on Apps! We downloaded and loved:
MathGirl Garden
Smarty Shortz
Pocket Zoo