[IAEP] [UKids] "Top 50 Educational Apps Are Mostly All Stuck In The Stone Age"

[Sora Edwards-Thro]

Thanks for passing this on; it's helpful for my research on technology and
literacy.

The authors of the report itself mention television programming as the gold
standard for educational media. But accessing a television program is just
a matter of tuning to the right station; you don't have to download or pay
for anything if you've already got cable (yeah, people are using Netflix
more and more, but let's talk about that another day).

It would be more appropriate to compare apps to literacy games such as
flashcards or puzzles that parents make the decision to purchase
individually. I'd be curious whether the advertising for these traditional
formats is any better or worse than what they're reporting from the digital
"Wild West."

It's interesting that the Forbes author talks about learning methods while
the report authors are more focused on skills. The Forbes author is
concerned that tablets are just a new way of copying / rehearsing, instead
of offering opportunities for deeper engagement.
But copying / rehearsing is a great way to learn basic skills like linking
letters with the sounds they make. It doesn't make much sense to apply
deeper methods for learning letter-sound connections. On the other hand,
higher-level skills like comprehension and storytelling do require these
deeper methods, and there definitely aren't enough apps that promote these
skills.

So, you can still criticize app developers for not doing something crucial
for children, but you need to make sure you're going about it in the right
way.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:

> Not unlike stone tablets, used in classrooms since 1900BC, and similar
> slates used in classrooms until about 1930- anyway that's the comparison
> made here by* Jordan Shapiro* who reviews educational apps professionally:
>
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2015/12/12/the-top-50-educational-apps-are-mostly-all-stuck-in-the-stone-age/
>
>   "Ancient students and teachers of
>   Mesopotamia used clay tablets for the
>   same reason (and in the same way)
>   that we still use dry-erase boards: clay
>   allowed pupils to write, wipe away
>   mistakes, and then iterate. The digital
>   tablet now works in very much the
>   same way. It’s beholden to same
>   essential metaphors. Tablet computing
>   with apps always maintains that same
>   spirit of impermanence and
>   ephemerality. Nothing is stored locally,
>   everything hovers in the cloud..."
>
> Perhaps more optimistically around our much-loved literacy apps:
>
>   "The Joan Ganz Cooney Center
>   report, *Getting a Read on the App*
> *  Stores: A Market Scan and Analysis of*
> *  Children’s Literacy Apps, *is full of tons
>   more interesting discoveries, plus a few
>   recommendations for app developers
>   and the industry as a whole"
>
>
> http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/publication/getting-a-read-on-the-app-stores-a-market-scan-and-analysis-of-childrens-literacy-apps/
>
> --
> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
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