Online Learning Archives - Page 2 of 3

Posted on November 21, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Apps selection is a task that requires patience and the right knowledge. One shouldn’t jump head first into installation of a kids educational apps that has been found interesting. At first, you should ask several questions to yourself about the particular app at hand.

Here are 9 questions to aid you in the selection process of a kids educational app.

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10 Great Review Sites for Kids Educational Apps

5 Tips to Find the Best Kids Educational Apps

1. Does the app have the right content that you want students to learn?

Check whether your new app have the right information that you want your kids to learn. If you want an app that should focus on reading comprehension, installing an app that teaches grammar lessons would be inappropriate.

2. Which skills do you want your students to practice or refine by using the app?

Like the appropriate content, you may also have specific skills that you want the kids to develop. Each of the kids educational app will be designed to focus on developing single or multiple skills in the users. Select one that suits your need carefully.

3. Will the app try to sell to your students?

Many publishers try to advertise and offer in-app s through the educational app. This is a tendency that will hurt your child’s learning progress and focus. You should double check and confirm that the app does not come from vendors indulging in such practices.

4. Will the app cater to my students’ needs?

Not every student is alike. Each has their own learning pace and learning requirements. Choose an app which has an approach that suits the learning techniques of individual students, even if it means using multiple number of apps for teaching the same concepts.

5. Are there finer apps that could achieve the same purpose?

It is commonly known that an app is not developed by a single publisher alone. For example, there are hundreds of apps that teaches basic mathematical functions. When there are two apps available for fulfilling the same purpose, always go for the best.

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6. Is there any other app that is available at a cheaper price?

Some people believe that apps that cost higher are of superior quality and can meet your expectations better. Well, there is not much truth in this. Yet, you should be careful not to compromise by choosing an app that is of a deteriorated quality.

7. Do you already have a similar app with you?

Apps come in a variety of titles and themes. Sometimes even the descriptions may not give you a fair and accurate idea about the function that it performs. Therefore, it is easy to get confused and misled. Be sure to check the reviews on the app store thoroughly, especially when you are going for a paid app.

8. Does the app inculcate positive values in students?

Many a times, misguidance can come in the form of apps too. You should instantly dismiss apps that are going against your school’s and even your culture’s values. Apps should promote good qualities in students and not bad behaviours. An app that glorifies an act of theft or an evil character is definitely not the right one for young children.

9. Can you talk with the app creators?

You should check if you are able to contact the app’s creators directly. You might need this when your app gets stuck, crashes, or when you lose some data stored in it.

There are a lot of marketing and buzz surrounding almost every app found out there, which makes decision taking very difficult. Apps that meet the needs of teachers and students are very rare. Using this checklist you can select apps that would actually improve learning outcomes and that are not merely all flash.

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on November 3, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile devices are powerful teaching and learning tools. As hundreds of newly designed kids educational apps flood the app repositories day by day, choosing an educational app is not as easy as it may seem.

The services listed below will help you in steering through the confounded world of kids educational apps.

Also Read:

5 Tips to Find the Best Kids Educational Apps

12 Common Features of Good Learning Apps for Kids

1. Teachers With Apps

The vast number of educational apps released into the app stores everyday can make it difficult for teachers, therapists, and parents to find the right app to fulfill their educational goals. Teacher With Apps was found to assist you in responsibly selecting quality mobile educational apps. The team achieves this vision by participating students and teachers in the reviewing process.

2. Digital Story Time

Digital Story Time provides individual ratings for a wide range of features in educational digital reading materials such as educational value, animation, audio quality, interactivity, re-readability, bedtime etc. The site already has more than 600 reviews collected in a sortable database.

3. iMums

iMums is an initiative of four mothers, who have dedicated themselves into educating parents about the best digital contents for their children. iMums gives you awareness of the best digital stories, kids educational apps, games, and other technology products; including latest news and articles about educational apps.

4. Geekswithjuniors

Geekswithjuniors is a site for parents living in the modern age of technology. They review only the best kids educational apps, games, and workflow recipes and gives you all essential information that you would need to know about an app. All apps are tried and tested before posting reviews on them. The team behind the curtain has also developed an app for toddlers, namely akzara, which is basically an alphabet and sound learning app.

5. Children’s Technology Review (CTR)

Started as early as 1993, Children’s Technology Review provides objective reviews and ratings of commercial children’s digital media products. They cover children’s apps, games, toys, trends etc. available for newborns up to 15 years of age in the children’s interactive media.

CTR can be availed as a subscription that is delivered monthly or weekly. The website serves as a great resource to parents, teachers, researchers, publishers and librarians for finding interactive media products.

6. Graphite

Graphite is a Common Sense Education service that eases the process of making great technology choices. With Graphite, discovery of the best apps, games, and websites for your classroom use is just one step away. The popular tools that they have reviewed includes Edmodo, ClassDojo, Socrative, and Educreations.

7. Educational App Store (EAS)

Educational App Store has a different criteria of rating apps, unlike most of the services mentioned above. The EAS team focuses on curriculum alignment when they assess educational apps. EAS certified teachers sort out the best educational apps through an organised approach that stresses on educational value and learning outcomes.

8. KinderTown

KinderTown focuses on finding out the best kids educational apps for children who are 3 to 8 years old. Every app is tested by teachers, parents, and children. The key factors that are considered for rating an app includes the fun factor, navigational ease, simple design features, cost etc.

9. Balefire

Balefire gives parents and educators information about apps that focuses on skill development in children. They promote instructional apps of good quality and believes that these apps will build skills that children need as they grow up.

10. Participate Learning

Participate Learning has a collection of expert approved free kids educational apps, videos, and other resources. You will also be able to get info about the favorite educational resources of a lot of teachers who use the service.

Posted on October 25, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Every young parent is excited about sending their kids to smart schools. We all wish to provide our kids with better education regardless of our financial status. But how many of us know enough about what kind of education systems and what kind of education environments are prevalent today? After a comprehensive comparison, there are 7 things that smart schools are found to be doing better than ordinary schools. But, before going into that let’s consider three fundamental shifts, which transformed learning environments brought about.

The three types of learners in modern learning environments

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12 Common Features of Good Learning Apps for Kids

Social Learner: Learning is more of a social activity now.

Autonomic Learner: The dependency of students on teachers have decreased to a great extent, especially with the advent of education app development, to become more or less self-directed.

Inquisitive Learner: Students are more curious to explore into the unknown than just cramming and passing examinations.

Things smart schools will do better

1. Goal Oriented Development: Just like during education app development, modern classrooms work their way up based on previously set goals. They are always on some mission that could aid development of various skills in students. Smart schools conduct community conversations that helps them in setting various goals that are to be achieved. Some examples include creating great learning experiences, community involvement, overall growth etc.

2. Powerful Learning Experiences: When we all learned back during the old days using the traditional approach, the only time that we had to be involved in any learning activities was once when we were in our classrooms or when we had to do homework. The focus of education has now shifted to anytime learning and anywhere learning.

Technology can create powerful and amazing learning experiences for students. Technologies such as the internet, learning apps, and other innovative resources create better learning opportunities for students. For e.g., now education app development companies create apps that enable students to communicate, collaborate and share learning materials and assignments 24/7 year round.

3. Introduction to Productive Learning Environments: With the aid of new technologies, teachers can now plan and allocate resources in better ways. For e.g., if students need some lessons or resources for a longer time period the teachers can include rotation and flex models, which delivers a part of the active time via online. This will in turn increase productivity.

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4. Better Student Profiles: With the use of smart technologies, it is possible to save each students’ academic history for future reference. No matter whether you need a progress report from a year ago or a remark made one month ago, all are accessible at the tip of your fingers.

Teachers, parents, and the students themselves can compare the progress that has been made and decide where they need to put an extra effort. Also, a student-centric and personalized approach can be formulated based on the capabilities and interest areas of individual students.

5. Aid Growth: Next gen schools will provide knowledge map for each student, where their mastery of skills are portrayed. They can be awarded with badges, tags and other recognition signs for their respective accomplishments. The progress to each level can be based on acquisition of the required recognition signs.

6. Leverage Teacher Talent: Like a student profile, every teacher will have a teacher’s profile too. The strengths and weaknesses of the teachers will become trasnparent through these comprehensive profiles. Apart from that the roles of teachers have shown a massive shift from being a dictator to a facilitator in the modern classrooms. Online classes allow schools to take advantage of the services of renowned lecturers and specialists in various fields from anywhere in the world.

7. Social Connections: Until recently, parents did not have a direct role in their kid’s education. New gen schools promote active community participation. They involve parents and even family members apart from peers for encouraging community based learning.

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on October 15, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Medina City Schools launched mobile app, website for students and parents.

If you want to check your child’s homework or trying to reach any teacher, then this app can help you. This app is available for both Android and Apple users.

Soon, they will come out with a user-friendly website and an email or phone call system which can keep the parents updated about the activities in the school.

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Parents and students can avail school district information through this app. This is nothing but increase the communication level with the community.

This website up-gradation will also give district a new look.

Posted on August 25, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

We know that it is practically hard to achieve the right mix between entertainment and kids educational apps. It is needless to say that companies developing educational apps for kids have their own characteristic preferences and dislikes for the apps that they develop. So, it is necessary for a parent to understand what marks the best kids educational apps out from the rest and which ones would deliver the purpose well.

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Get here tons of Good learning apps for kids

Remember, there’s no greater harm you could do than putting your kids in front of a terrible app.

1. Plenty of Research

Almost all educational apps for kids available as a download comes with that bewitching tag “educational” glued into them. As a parent searching for the right kid’s app, you could instantly get bewildered when you land on an app store’s page. Well, you are not alone and there is no need to get panicked. Who would not get perplexed when you find hundreds of titles making even more claims to you?

Inorder to get out of this dilemma, parents could do a lot of research before taking their final decision. Go through a lot of app store reviews and check the rating of an app. There are even useful sites that rate popular apps or you could visit and get tips from field experts on how you could pick one that is right for your child.

2. Talk with your Child’s Teacher

Apart from online resources, there is another great resource from where you could learn what makes your kids interested and what makes them bored – your kid’s teacher. They are in a better position to know if an app you are confused about is truly educational or not. You can also get a list of recommended apps that will fit well with the curriculum and lessons that your kids learn at school.

3.Download and Test

The best thing you could do to check the worth of an app is by downloading and using it yourself; or better, give it to your kids and watch how they play with it. Even though you are not a 5 year old yourself and wouldn’t be able to accurately understand what appeals to a toddler, you can talk with them and understand if they are interested or not. There are several other benefits too in following this method.

You will be able to know if the app is trying to sell anything to your kid or whether the app gives ample security. But, this method is limited when it comes to testing apps that are d as everyone wouldn’t be willing to an app until they are convinced.

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4. Make Faults

Well, you are testing an app and that obviously means testing their behaviour while you are wrong too. It is important to check if the app makes your kid feel regretful when they make a mistake. This is dangerous and will even lead to an aversion for the subject as a whole.

The app shouldn’t make your kids feel freaked out when they fail to choose the right answers. Instead, it should incorporate mature ways of dealing with such situations by motivating them to try again. Including hints and praising them for partially correct answers are excellent ways of encouraging children.

5. Did Your Child have Fun?

You should honestly answer this question. Even though you just want to get your kids to learn things, they won’t be going hand in hand with the same idea as yours. A well designed app will only be effective when they have the right amount of fun. Otherwise, it will be just another crappy app.

You should definitely visit Edsys’s extensively researched Educational app directory, where you can find all the educationally relevant apps that are currently available for iOS and Android devices in one place, so you don’t have to go looking for them at various places. All the students, teachers, and parents can get the perfect app that fulfills their needs in the Educational App directory.

Posted on August 2, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Now, iPads are allowed in library for in-library use.

These iPads are loaded with children’s apps for early literacy and coding.

Launchpads, pre-loaded with educational apps are accessible in library. But they’re in the form of games so that your child might not realize that they’re learning in summer vacations also.

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“They’re divided by subjects like science, early literacy and so they’re learning to read they’re learning their letters or they’re learning scientific concepts and they don’t even realize it because they’re doing it while they’re playing games,” Nashville Public Library’s Emily Waltenbaugh said.

Ipads are available at every Metro public library location. Patrons can put a hold on one online by logging into their library account.

Posted on July 8, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

There are more people in the world who own a mobile phone than there are people who own a toothbrush. A two year old knows how to hold an iPhone properly and how to lock/unlock it. Mobile apps became the most successful innovation in the field of mobile technology and creative minds found its implementation in the field of education as well.

As learning app are getting in demand, new ones are flooding all the major digital stores everyday. Any parent or concerned teacher could easily be confused about choosing one. Hence, there is much importance in acquiring the skill needed for selecting the proper learning app for your kid and this skill depends greatly on understanding the common features of good learning apps.

The most important thing that an educational app for kids should have is the fun factor. Kids should be able to accomplish tasks and learning activities without even realizing that they are learning a thing or two! Even when it seems that an app is engaging in nature and your kid wants to use it again, one cannot conclude that the app could be educative. Being attractive and being educative are two totally different concepts.

This infographic lists 12 features every good learning apps for kids should possess.

Also Check : Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on May 4, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

One of the most revolutionary contribution of technology towards the field of education is none other than the educational apps. It has allowed teachers and students to think out of the box. It changed how education is imparted and how learning is assessed.

With time, educational app development companies might come up with more miraculous ideas. In this blog, let us find out how far educational apps have succeeded in positively impacting the institution of education.

1. Simulate the phenomenons and processes around you

Teachers often have to deal with extremely unmotivated and bored pupils when explaining topics that are abstract or too difficult to comprehend. If that is the case, you might have seriously thought about engaging them by choosing the avant-garde.

You might have faced problems explaining to your students chromosome pairing taking place during the different phases of meiosis or describing the material dispersion in a prism or explaining the chemical bonds formed during a chemical reaction. What you can do at the most using conventional systems is, making use of a pictorial representation while you explain the concept. But still that is not a refined solution. These classes are still uninteresting for most of the students.

By educational app development, you can provide students with simulations and models corresponding to various topics. These interactive demonstrations will develop interest in the subject and allow them to approach learning through newer perspectives.

2. Provide a global reach

With educational apps, you can give your students the advantage of exposure to other cultures. For example, second language speech classes can be organized by collaborating with educational institutions in another country. From these classes, children can learn to speak a language by interacting with the native speakers. This is far better than the traditional method of learning a language by practising the grammar rules.

3. Use virtual manipulatives

From the old days itself, physical manupulatives like the abacus, helped in grasping skills like problem solving, reasoning, understanding the connection between things etc. Virtual manipulative apps are now widely available to aid your children in learning difficult concepts, relationship between objects, variables etc. Geoboard is one such popular manipulative, that helps kids explore the basic geometrical concepts such as perimeter, area etc.

4. Probes and sensors in education

Apps are used along with sensors and probes to measure data, such as the pH, temperature, position of an object etc. Sensors can collect these data and communicate them to your smart device. These set of values are instantly turned into real time graphs or tables as per choice. Ideas such as energy, mass etc. and natural processes such as weather, photosynthesis, cellular respiration etc. are better learned by the students this way.

Recommended read: How to be Successful at Educational App Development?

5. Better evaluation methods

Traditionally, evaluation meant nothing more than asking curriculum related questions and obtaining predefined answers. Students learned definitions, but did not have any mentionable or practical knowledge about the essence of a concept. There were good grades, but there were not enough understanding. Through educational app development you can benefit from various methods of assessment, whereby you can check whether the actual concept is clear to the student.

Another benefit of using apps for assessment is that it provides real-time communication between the students and teachers. Instant sharing of assignments and grades along with simultaneous guidance are features unique to this system. A teacher can track the method used by a student and the time consumption for doing each individual task. This will help them to analyse the exact topics that the student finds difficult and assist them by providing more examples and explanations.

6. Using the multimedia

The technology can be utilized as an effective educational tool. Multimedia is more attention holding than learning from the regular printed text or listening to the teacher. Students nowadays are already accustomed to information sharing through pictures, videos, animation, podcasts and other various information formats.

7. E-books

Applying e-books into the educational system will be a breakaway movement. Future students could bid their backpacks goodbye forever. There will be no more carrying a lot of heavy books around. Digital textbooks will replace paper textbooks in smart schools. These electronic textbooks also include supplementary visualizations that aids in better understanding.

8. Epistemic games

These are role playing games, where the students are given specific roles or tasks imitating real-world situations. They have to provide well thought-out solutions for confronted problems and during the process they learn about various important concepts in the real life. Epistemic games focus on developing creative and innovative ways of thinking. It also helps in acquiring real life skills and gives exposure to various value systems.

Posted on April 21, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

There are so many apps to choose from in the educational app category for children on all major app stores. Still, possibility is high that all your efforts may turn out unrewarding in the end. So, it is imperative that you should have a better knowledge on what makes the difference between a truly educational app and something that is just an eye candy. Here, we discuss about the features that every best learning apps for kids share in common.

Meet the State Standards: The learning apps for kids should focus on the state’s curriculum standards. For this, advice from teachers should be sought while developing the app.
Simple UX and Easy Navigation: The user interface should be simple. It should be designed and structured so as to make navigation easy for children.
Use Illustrations, Speech and Music: Children learn better if they are provided with enough examples and illustrations. For e.g., when teaching them simple operations like addition and couting, you can provide them with illustrations of the same. Apps can include music to keep them entertained, but a mute button should be provided in case they are needed. Additionally, speech should be offered in apps that target children who haven’t learned to read yet.
Short Activities at a Time: Learning activities should not be too time consuming, since kid’s tend to lose their concentration when a certain activity takes too much time and is confusing. There shouldn’t be elaborate learning procedures. All activities should be well-explained, short, simple, and directly related with the concept to be learned.
Set Goals that Aid Learning Naturally: Apps should promote activities that aid learning naturally. Your learning goal shouldn’t be too apparent to the children. This will make the activity seem monotonous and repetitive. Kids tend to like apps providing entertaining activities more than apps calling them to do memorizing activities. Apps should promote acquirement of qualities such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity etc.
Complexity should be Fit for the Learner’s Age and Cognitive Development: The concept and activities of learning apps for kids should be apt for the cognitive ability of the target audience. If an app is designed for children of an age range, then there should be options that will allow adults to select the right level for their children. More advanced levels can be chosen as the child progress with their learning. Also, if the chosen level is too easy for a child, then he or she will lose interest in the activity very soon. There should be something exciting and challenging for them to do in every activity.
Apps should Promote Social Involvement: The learning process is enhanced, when there is the right amount of social involvement. Parents, teachers, and peer groups should interact with the children in their activities to give them support and competition.
Locked Menus and Settings: Kid’s apps should be devoid of any unwanted distractions that take the focus away from the set goals. There shouldn’t be any popups, advertisements, links, social media, or similar distractions coming in between an activity. Everything should be locked and access should be given only for grown-ups.
Linear Advancement: The advancement of any activity should be made in a linear fashion to ensure flow. There shouldn’t be too many choices given. This will result in the kid’s loosing attention from the central activity.
Track Progress: There should be a well defined grading mechanism in place to check the kid’s learning progress. Feedback should not be restricted to positive ones alone. It is also not advisable to be too harsh on them or discouraging, when they are wrong. Negative feedbacks should be so designed that they will motivate the kids to keep on trying.

Also Check : Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on March 29, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

ITunes and Play Store along with other major app stores categorise thousands of apps under the section, learning apps for kids. As a parent, you could be mesmerized by the wide choice of educational apps that are available in these digital stores. But, have you ever had a second thought about whether you are going to spend money on something that could be valuable for your kid’s educational needs?

This article will give you a fine idea on what has to be your considerations and not as a responsible parent, while selecting the same.

1. Minimalistic Distractions

Parents readily find it satisfactory and relaxing to choose an app that offers too much gameplay or noisy stuff thinking that these kind of apps could keep their children interested for long.

Although learning apps for kids should have a sufficient amount of entertainment value, it will be unwise to include too much distractions in them. Unwanted elements could keep your kids very far from reaching the goal. The best tactics will be to provide entertainment in an amount as much as would be necessary to keep them on track.

2. Avoid Inappropriate Content

Not many parents will give enough attention into checking whether the app content is appropriate for the age, individual ability, and cognitive development of the child. It is unfortunate that there is no regulatory systems that are in effect, which monitors the quality of the educational apps at present. As a result, anybody could make claims and is not required to answer to an authority. So, the responsibility to choose beneficial learning apps for kids lies in the hands of the parents and teachers alone.

It is advised that the apps should be checked properly to ensure it being fit for use by children. As children often imitate what they see and hear, it is very important that the apps should be devoid of violence or other kinds of information that may spoil your child.

3. Choose Apps that Encourage Social Involvement

Guidance is always part of the learning process. Choose apps that promote a good amount of parental interaction and team play. Your child will learn more when there is competition and support from peer groups.

4. Say No to Apps that Try to Market to Your Child

We are all happy with free for use stuffs. But, never take that approach with your child’s learning. What comes for free, has got its disadvantages.

Almost all of the ‘free’ and ‘lite’ apps that are available in the market do make efforts to market to your child. Offering in-app s, advertising for attractive paid apps, and restricting part of the content only for premium users are common marketing strategies used.

5. Look for Ratings and Reviews

Taking advice from teachers, parents, child psychologists, and interaction specialists is a crucial step during the educational app development process. This is because a lot of factors like content appropriateness, psychological influence of the content, average learning pace at the age etc. are to be considered before deciding the information that should go into an app.

So the parents should not blindly fall for the promises and claims given in the app’s description. Instead, they should check if the app has succeeded in building trust among the public. Each should be based on the popularity of the app. Look for brands that are already established in the field.

Though learning is something that is not detachable from one’s childhood, too much emphasis on the matter is also not good for a child’s overall progress and development. At times, children should be allowed to enjoy non-educational content too.

Also Check : Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List