eArticle Review: iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category of Apple's App Store

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop has recently published iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category of Apple's App Store, which is an in depth research study that examined 200 of the top selling education Apps with the intention of tracking trends in the industry and setting best practices for developers. Take a look at some of their findings:

KEY FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Apps are an important and growing medium for providing educational content to children, both in terms of their availability and popularity.
• Over 80% of the top selling paid apps in the Education category of the iTunes Store target children.
• In 2009, almost half (47%) of the top selling apps targeted preschool or elementary aged children. That number has increased to almost three quarters (72%).
• The percentage of apps for children has risen in every age category, accompanied by a decrease in apps for adults.

Early learning apps for toddler/preschool are particularly prominent. Developers should consider potential saturation of this market.
• Apps for toddlers/preschoolers are the most popular age category (58%), and experienced the greatest growth (23%).
• General early learning is the most popular subject (47%), and there are significantly more general early learning apps than the second most popular subject (math, 13%).

The first iLearn report was published in 2009.

App Review: Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime

The Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime app is an interactive ebook app from ustwo for iPad. The look of it is gorgeous. The illustrations are reminiscent of 19th century woodcuts, vividly colored. Each nursery rhyme (there are 8 of them) is presented in two "pages" and each page has at least one interactive element. The text is incorporated as part of the illustration, and some of the text moves or reacts along with the images on each page. The narration can be turned on or off, and the reader is a British woman with a pleasant voice.

The interactive elements are fun but don't add much, if anything, to the comprehension of the rhymes. There's some wit and ingenuity to the design in some rhymes, e.g. Humpty Dumpty cracks open and the King's horses and men spill out; but in others, like the Grand Old Duke, it feels a bit more random. The humor is a little bizarre, with a tinge of the macabre. The sound effects when Jack and Jill tumble down the hill or get smacked with fish from the well (yes, you read that right) sound like an old kung fu movie, and after you cut the tails off the three blind mice with your carving knife guillotine, you can send the severed tails careening around the screen, or reattach them and cut them off again. Of course, this is my 3-year-old son's favorite part of the ebook. He thinks it's hilarious.

Overall, though, it seems that he's already getting a little bored with it. The interactive elements are quickly mastered and there's not much else to discover. After playing with it a short time I noticed he was already skipping some pages and even his favorites didn't hold his attention long. At $3.99 it doesn't break the bank, but as great as it looks I doubt we'll get hours and hours of entertainment from this one.

Review by Genesis Hansen

App Review: Baby Sign ASL

Baby Sign ASL, Version 1.05

By iDev2.com

$4.99 on iTunes

Baby sign language is very popular right now, and I want to jump on that bandwagon.  My daughter Jordan is five months old, so I plan to start teaching her some basic sign language.  I have a book and a DVD, but do I have time to deal with that?  No.  This Baby Sign ASL app is perfect.  There are more than enough words here (don’t cheap out and get a free version- it is a waste of time).  Each word is demonstrated through a clear video.  You can add your favorites to a list and quiz yourself.  You can search alphabetically or by categories.  I spent about five minutes with the app today, and I have a few signs in mind (mommy, daddy, milk, and bath) that I plan to show Jordan tonight.  While I was watching the videos, I couldn’t help thinking of Robert DeNiro’s character teaching his grandson signs in “Meet the Fockers”.

Review by Leslie McNabb

eArticle: Chris Stevens on Alice for the iPad

Check out Chris Stevens on Alice for the iPad, Book Apps, and Toronto: a Q & A to hear the story of the phenomenon that knocked publishers on their patoots in 2010.  Stevens shares how a fortuitous combination of unemployment, hard work and technical skills resulted in the development of a new, interactive format that sparked a mad rush to get on the interactive eBook bandwagon.  He gives a scathing overview of the eBook industry:

What’s happening at the moment is that most publishers are handing their major titles over to app developers who are ruining these titles with rushed, unprofessional layout and design. There is this weird situation where programmers are suddenly being given free rein to design books. We watch as publishers like Random House outsource the design of cherished titles to programmers who—despite their excellence at programming—are not designers. The complete lack of care and attention paid to the production of digital books is genuinely mystifying.

He does, however, give props to Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime (which we will review shortly), and tells about some new projects he has been working on.  I can't wait to read Alice in New York!

App Review: Drawing Pad

We first encountered Drawing Pad (Amazon) at the Apple store.  We then went home and installed it on both the Kindle Fire and Galaxy Tab because it was such a hit with the little dude.

You can use digital crayons, pencil crayons, markers, stamps, coloured paper and stickers. The sticker function is by FAR the most awesome. There are stickers of fish, vehicles, insects, faces, flowers, birds and animals, all of which can be shrunk or enlarged and moved around until you "stamp" it to make it stick permanently. The drawer that holds all the tools opens and closes, and Little J can now navigate his way through the drawer to change colours or tools, as well as scrap his piece of artwork and start over again.

Drawing Pad (iTunes) is an awesome app for learning fine motor movement, playing with paint without making a mess, and making the train go choo choo down the track.  Totally worth the $1.99 and good for kids from 2 up.

App Review: First Words

Review submitted by the lovely Genesis.


Here's my tip for getting through a restaurant meal with a toddler: get the FirstWords apps from Learning Touch. We have both the Animals and the Vehicles apps ($1.99 each). They also offer a Deluxe edition for $4.99 that has animals, vehicles, colors, shapes, etc.

FirstWords shows a picture of an animal or vehicle, with letter tiles spelling out the name of the object. There are corresponding letter tiles scattered randomly below the image and the child has to move the letter tiles to their appropriate place by correctly matching tiles. Each time my son touches a letter tile, the app reads the letter. When he touches the picture, the app says the name of the object. Once he successfully puts all the letter tiles in their correct places, the app reads each letter, says the whole word, and the picture spins, enlarges and makes the appropriate animal or vehicle sound before moving to the next word. The voice of the male reader is clear and pleasant.

There are some settings you can adjust to make it a little easier or harder depending on your child's age and familiarity with the app. I love that there are visual cues for beginners who don't know their alphabet yet. They can randomly move tiles around, but when they get close to the matching tile, it lights up.

My son adores these apps and was very quickly able to use them without help from Mom. He learned his alphabet by playing these games, picked up some vocabulary and now he gets that letters combine to make words. It's really fun to see him take skills he's picked up using the iPhone and apply them to reading print books. He loves to spell out titles and words in his books, and it's very natural to him to move between print and electronic media.

FirstWords apps are currently available for iPhone and iPad, and I thought they were worth every penny. New animals and vehicles have been added at no extra charge with periodic updates of the app, which helps to keep the game interesting. For less than the price of a mocha at Starbucks my son has had hours of entertainment and education, and it's so nice when my husband and I can actually sit and enjoy a cup of coffee at the end of a meal instead of taking turns chasing our energetic boy around a restaurant. Also great for car trips, plane rides, doctor's waiting rooms, or anytime the parent in charge needs a little break.

Learning Touch also makes a First Letters and Phonics app. My son loves it, but to me the voice of the reader/singer for the app is only slightly less grating than nails on a chalkboard. Caveat emptor!

eBook Review: A Charlie Brown Christmas

It's Christmas Eve, y'all!  I took the plunge and shelled out some actual dough to buy A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I am glad I did.  For my hard-earned money I got to witness my favourite melancholy youngster bemoaning his lack of Christmas cheer, then finding it again by being whacked on the head with a little religion (yeah, it's a little heavy handed, but I'm trying not to be all Scrooge McDuck about it).

Extras included a game of collecting Christmas ornaments throughout the book, snowflakes that go POP and crystalize, and pop-up style characters that do funny things like sigh or wiggle when you tap them.  There is also finger painting, piano playing, angry-birds style snowball throwing and Lucy saying "Look Charlie, Let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket!"

I had fun clicking on words to make the bored sounding computer voice make sentences that made no sense, and Little J really got the hang of turning pages.

Spring for this App, snuggle up with your kid and be jolly, eBook style.

Happy Whatever Holiday You Celebrate When It Gets Cold, everyone!

iTunes
Android 

ALSC Blog Literacy App Review

Kiera Parrott, the librarian who told us about the Darien Library's circulating Early Literacy iPad kits has now posted something else on the ALSC blog: Five Great Apps for Under-Fives.  These apps are not free, but she includes some favorites like Peter Rabbit and Moo, Baa, La La La.  Take a look and load up your iPad with some good electronic early literacy content.  Then come over to my place and let me play with the iPad.

Darien Library's Early Literacy iPad Kit

I found a great post on the ALSC blog that describes an Early Literacy iPad Kit lending program at the Darien Library in Darien, CT.  They've got all sorts of resources for Digital Literacy.  Great quote from the article:

In conjunction with traditional book-sharing between child and parent, devices like the iPad can boost early literacy skill-building as well as stimulate visual and media literacy development

What a forward thinking library!  What a marvelous program!  There were 46 holds on the 6 items available. 

This kit includes an iPad 2 pre-loaded with librarian-selected apps and eBooks designed to stimulate early literacy skills in preschool age children. Also included is information for parents on using technology with young children, screentime, evaluating apps for children, and a list of the selected apps. The kit may be borrowed for one week by a parent or caregiver of children ages 2 to 5.  

 I think I need to seek some grant funding...