The world of apps for kids is overflowing. Thanks to technology, books and games have become multi-dimensional and can be really exciting. Developers are able to take a well-known children’s book or an original story and turn it into a colorful creation replete with dancing figures, drifting clouds, talking flowers and a screen that takes pictures, so that just like the game apps, they offer speed, pleasure, color and music all at the same time.

Do these applications truly encourage children’s active participation?

All this innovation is now a part of every household and children and adults are armed with iPads or iPhones so that everyone is connected and interacting. The reality though, can be quite different as sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between activity and passivity. Almost every application claims to involve the kids in the game or the story and stimulate them to take the initiative. But does an overload of interactions, colors, music,
3-D and endless game options in one application really encourage kids to be active? Or perhaps it is quite the opposite – when everything is laid out for you and each character in the story rolls around and does a backflip at the touch of a fingertip, might it be that we are actually making our kids more passive? When they see elements on screen where they need to participate but this participation really involves no cognitive or creative thinking on their part, then how is this valuable for kids’ learning and fun? What’s really happening is that kids are not being asked to use their brains but are just being over stimulated with no benefit for them.

Which apps do actually encourage kids to actively think?

There are apps that do encourage creativity and enable kids to create something. This can happen in a structured story or in an open and ‘free’ way. An application that actually asks the kids to perform a task is one that truly encourages thinking and creativity.

When we are talking about a game in which the players are not asked for a solution or an act of thinking or of coordination, but are just overwhelmed by constant stimulation and incessant interactivity, they become passive. The fact that an application encourages touching, pressing or dragging does not mean the player is mentally active, but on the contrary, is a passive user who is easily distracted and whose only purpose is to discover all the interactions hiding behind each icon, figure or flower blinking away on the screen.       

As it is in life – so it is in the application

When we choose a computer game, or even a game or book in the shop next door, we make sure that the book content suits our worldview, that it conveys messages and values that are important to our kids’ education as well as their pleasure. We make sure the computer games do not encourage violence or pornography, and we are happy to discover that a game has some added value such as promoting creativity, cultivating scientific thinking or providing important general knowledge about astronomy, the natural world around us etc.

The world of apps is very tempting for all of us – parents, kids and developers, we are all still amazed and curious about this advanced technology that allows us to do so much. Nevertheless, we must remember that among the apps we choose, there are some that seem highly attractive but might have nothing to offer beyond over-stimulation, and there are those that can help kids advance, because they do promote creativity, stimulate thinking and important values.

Bottom line – choose wisely and critically from among the abundance on offer.

Remember that in the world of apps, just like everywhere else –

“all that glitters is not gold”!

A good look at educational apps for kids on the market will tell you that there is a huge choice out there. Some of these apps fall into categories we are very familiar with – learning to read, learning math, learning about the globe, arts and crafts for early childhood learning and so forth. However, using this new tool and the amazing, high-speed, constantly evolving technology, we as developers, can construct a world for our kids that is composed of all our knowledge, everything we are familiar with, while at the same time trying to infuse innovation, “modern values” and the open, abstract train of thought that is so essential in our fast-paced, ever-developing world.

In fact, we can categorize educational apps as either “traditional” – those that adhere to the familiar values of life and learning, or as “integrative” (like the more modern baby carriages), which combine the teaching of reading, writing and math with more inventive, open-ended options in order to introduce kids to what we consider to be essential abilities or skills for life in our technologically oriented world – in particular – learning not to limit thinking to the boundaries of what is already known.

Why is all this so important?

We should not discard the good old pedagogy – we need it, it actually provides the initial, basic knowledge every child must master in order to have the necessary tools with which to create new knowledge – reading, writing and maybe even math. Nevertheless, today we are fully aware of the fact that the world needs brilliant, inventive minds of all kinds, minds brimming with self-confidence and curiosity – and that these qualities must be acquired and developed in the same way that reading and writing are acquired. The wonderful new medium of apps for kids allows us to offer ‘right-brain’ learning experiences, and that is why it is so important to us as parents and as developers to make sure the apps we download for our kids enable activity and creativity and match not only the values of the old world, but also those of the new!

In the following article we want to show you, parents and developers, a number of applications we find particularly educational, either because of a successful combination of ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ principles, or because of the enrichment, inventiveness and openness they offer.

Space Boards by NeoLithix

Space Boards is an app that enables kids to learn and practice motor skills as they acquire writing skills at different levels from the most basic to the more advanced. The app has 18 series, each of which focuses on a different writing skill from the basic elements of tracing a letter to writing words according to pictures.

Learning processes – Much has been written about learning processes such as those offered by Space Boards, and truth be told, it seems like it is the children who set the tone, and every child enjoys writing, especially when you have an app like this that leaves very little room for error. On each page children are clearly guided and equipped with a ‘pencil box’ with marker and eraser, so that even if they go over the lines and it bothers them, they can easily erase and try again.

No music! – Another point worth mentioning is that the developers were so focused on the goals of this app that they decided not to include music, which accompanies almost every app, be it a children’s book or a game. However, in this one, which is designed for hands-on learning, musical accompaniment while children are busy with the ‘worksheets’ might be a distraction – so it is worth noting the app’s choice of focusing on the goal rather than catering to the ‘norm’.

Ages – This app is suitable for preschoolers and first graders and somewhat resembles a Summer Fun workbook, only is much more fun and much more personal. Every child will find feel at home with it and will enjoy the pages he or she likes best.

Shared / technology element – This is also an application that you can teach kids to share and work on together, even though it is better suited to a ‘single player’, who concentrates on the learning while coloring, and not just on a game.

Cost – 4.99$ or free sample page

Bottom line – a particularly pedagogical app catering to the specific need of preschoolers and first graders as they develop motor skills and acquire writing competence. It will no doubt be particularly enjoyable for these ages and will give them a great deal.

Toca – Store by Toca – boca

Toca – Store is a colorful and fun-filled app that simulates a store. It enables children to learn something about money, payments and counting correctly while playing a shopping game.

What it teaches – Through the act of buying items (anything from teddy bears to bananas) kids can learn addition and subtraction. They can see and count the coins in the wallet. It is not something abstract, the money is concrete and visible, one coin at a time. The application encourages parents to ask questions during the game such as: “How many coins do I have left in the wallet?” or “Does this cost more or less than the other item? Kids actually learn about the value of money in a most basic manner that suits early childhood learning.

Shared / technology element – Toca Store requires two players right from the start – a seller and a buyer, even though it is possible to play with it on your own. However, when parents and children play together, the parents can accompany their children as they learn the new elements through taking part in the game, and at the same time learn good habits.

Cost – 1.99$

Bottom line–In fact, it is not entirely obvious that this is a learning app at first glance, because first and foremost it is very experiential and is reminiscent of the games of the past. But when you take a closer look, you see that it can instill habits and develop the ability to count, and can definitely change how arithmetic and the basics of counting is experienced in elementary school.

Monkey math Preschool sunshine

A light-hearted, fun app that teaches basic arithmetic. The cute little monkey and the backdrop of sand and sea with vacation-style music accompany the child through the various tasks, all having to do with the sea, marine animals and numbers.

Ages – Preschool and first grade

Shared / technology element – This can definitely be played with a friend, a parent or on your own. Whichever, it is just as much fun!

Task types – bursting bubbles with a certain number of items; four seahorses, four clams, four turtles… Players win prizes for certain tasks and choose a fish or a sea-shell for their aquarium that can be reached by clicking on a special icon on the edge of the screen. Other tasks involve tracing a number with your finger, filling in the next number in a series etc. What all the tasks have in common is their fun aspect, largely thanks to the gentle colorfulness of the blue sea and the music.

Cost – 0.99$

Bottom line–We loved this app, and we loved to see our 4- and 5-year old kids enjoy it and play with it for over 20 minutes at a time. Highly recommended for learning basic arithmetic while having fun!

Oscar & Josephine by Kidoodle apps

Oscar & Josephine by Kidoodle apps is a creative app, all the components of which seem to have been planned to support the child’s creativity. It won the Best Entertainment App prize. The story framework is about pirates, the sea and lots of imagination. Kids get a topic page with an initial drawing which they then develop as they see fit. This might be a giant aquarium to be filled with sea creatures or two nice pirates that have to be created; the topic pages are always interesting and thought-provoking.

We believe the quality of an app can be assessed through a number of parameters, and in Oscar & Josephine we found several such parameters that indicate the excellence of this one:

Music – The pleasant classical music does not distract the kids, rather it adds to the app’s artistic ambiance. The narrator guides the child simply and briefly, leaving room to think rather than just follow instructions, allowing real freedom to create.

Creative tools – The app provides simple tools that could be defined just as ‘brush and palette”, but as soon as the kids start filling in the picture they discover that they have everything! The same individual “markers” in the app are actually all a real artist needs to create, concentrate, have fun and not get lost in an overload of tools that are never used.

Shared / technology element – The days of hanging our kids drawings on the refrigerator are long gone. But this app also allows you to take a picture of the finished drawing, save it and even send it on to proud grandparents or friends. This sharing option is a tool in its own right; it helps to build self-confidence and a sense of pride when our kids can show the world their creations at the click of a button.

Cost – $1.99

Bottom line – Some kids don’t play with crayons and markers at all. They are afraid of what people will say, they feel there is too great a gap between what they want to draw and what comes out, and they sometimes feel they are supposed to draw something perfect. This is one of the apps that can bring such kids closer to the world of arts and crafts, offering a clean, pleasant and inviting space that will arouse interest in drawing and having fun with it.

We found that drawing with this app is both enjoyable and realistic, and definitely worth every parent’s attention!

This artmaking app makes you realize why collages are so much fun. Once you choose a base (mostly faces), you add pictures of food, candy, toys or other symbols to create features. It’s simple to use, but the possibilities are endless. This is an artmaking app for everyone, even those who aren’t so good at art.

Watching television has undergone a shift in recent years: whereas in the past, due to the limited number of channels and less clear-cut distinction between programs for adults and for children – or it may be simply because everything was more innocent, it served as the virtual bonfire around which sat the clan, and often the whole nation – watching television today has become an individual pastime broken down to age groups; a phenomenon television shares with more advanced technologies such as the iPad, found in most homes today with distinct applications for adults and children, all for individual use.

The Place of the Technology in the Family Home

We have switched over to individual use of the technology; this is now an established fact. The presence of a screen, both television and computer, is a matter of course in nurseries, parents’ bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens. The iPad has recently inserted itself into many homes, mostly as the family’s favorite appliance for which each family member finds their particular uses: children read, paint and play, parents surf, grandpa reads the paper and the elder siblings have turned it into a fast and well-oiled massaging machine.

Thus the question remains unavoidable: can the family reunite for a joint activity around any of those technological domestic devices? Could it be that we are missing out on the iPad as a device for family activity?

Ways and Means to Create Parent-Child involvement using iPad Applications.

Children are drawn to the iPad; they love to hold it (naturally after having cancelled radiation by switching to flight position), play with it and “control”, so to speak, whatever takes place on the screen, whether through a gaming or a reading application. Yet the parent can assume an enjoyable and active role beside the child, using the iPad as a marvelous tool to spend quality time playing together with the child.

There are many creative applications on the market today – such as Faces, Toontastic or Pirate, to name but a few – in which ideas for creative activities, feedback and the actual creative activity itself are perfectly suited for a joint parent-child experience.

Learning or educational applications more or less call upon parents to be there next to their child, offering guidance, encouragement, admiration and explanations. Yet parents can undergo a “corrective experience” due to the lightness, the colorfulness and the accessibility of the learning material some applications contain (Monkey Math, Space Boards).

And then there are the applications that offer “theatre” or “television” experience, inviting all family members to sit comfortably on the sofa and enjoy an application that is in fact an interactive children show.

It goes without saying that the participation of a parent in all applications that are meant for children makes the application gain much in effect and become more empowering and their experience more intense. Children will inevitably favor this application over other application where they play alone; just think back on your Scrabble or Monopoly evenings as children at home with your parents.

One must not forget that children can also play on the iPad together with other children, thus creating a conception in which the technology is not an individual or personal tool but rather a common, as opposed to individual, family device an experience one enjoys with friends.

The Hidden Value

The real value of turning the iPad into a family and social device is the intensification of the user’s experience. We come across so many applications that stimulate the imagination, convey knowledge and then others that are simply funny and amusing, but we tend to enjoy all this on our own. Sharing the experience with others intensifies it and leaves a deeper impression. People hold reciprocity and sharing in high esteem as that what improves our lives and makes us better human beings. And here we go and turn the technology into something where each faces it alone enclosed in their cocoon. There is definitely room for the technology in the family home – for the common fun, sharing and enrichment.

There’s no doubt that technology is an instrument for creativity. These days, net surfing, work, every day tasks, games and reading materials become much more enjoyable thanks to tablets.

“There is an app for that” navigate our digital life to find suitable replacements in the advanced world of applications for the things we enjoyed doing in the “regular” world.

“Faces iMake” is an artistic application that offers endless options for creativity that can mimic our natural creative action and place it on the tablet.

Are there not enough Creative Open End applications out there?

To be honest? No!

In the world of children and adult applications there are not a lot of sand box applications that offer a variety of creations, ways of self-expressions and self-thinking.

It is possible that we are missing more of the open end applications kind, since like in every other filed in life (being human) we tend to fixate on what we know and to narrow  by choice (or not) our actions, possibilities and thoughts. There is no doubt that  by doing so we are preventing our selfs and our kids from exploring what is possible in the filed of apps and going to the familiar and known.

It is important to us as developers and parents to emphasize the open end approach and  to develop apps that fold inside the endless fields of creativity and imagination.

What do we recommend?

To sit with your children while they create. The same attention that we give while our kids create at home, using papers and crayons, playing with play dough or reading a book, we should pay attention to our children while they create and use their imagination on the application.

This can be an activity, that nurture the connection between us and our kids while using technology, an experience that the child and the parent share together. Having an iPad installed with so many apps (as many of us have) for the kids, this rich place of content enables might confuse them child skips the application he’s using and rush to the next one.

In the creative work application the parent is supposed to guide the child and tell him to take his time with it, and to create on the screen what he would have created on the kitchen table. It is a shame to miss out on the opportunity to create something fun and diverse in the virtual world- especially when this application is designed to allow the child to create in the unlimited world of his imagination.

The options of ‘Faces’

There’s no doubt that today we can share our children’s drawings not only on our refrigerator but with anyone we may choose. The children themselves can save their work using Faces, and share it with their grandparents or friends by e-mail or Facebook, and it’s even possible to turn the work they made into puzzles or magnets and give it away as a gift.

What in the renewal of making the creation tangible?

The meaning of all these options is not only the ability to share them, an element most of us got used to, but also the ability to make them real – for instance turning them into puzzles or magnets.

This allows the child to make a connection between what he created and his own reality. Some may look at this option as “execution”, bringing  to life an idea that we usually leave in the virtual world, but for the children, this connection is significant and important because it emphasizes that the tangible and the virtual world are parallel to each other.

Like all current markets, the application market is full to overflow. Yet, in the domain of digital books applications and games for children, we distinguish a refreshing tendency to develop a new reading and playing experience while attempting to direct the young users towards constructive thought and instructive reading. We would be nonetheless well advised to wonder to what extent we, the developers, are delivering the goods and actually creating a new reading and play experience or, despite the vast extent of the world of application creation, merely refurbishing the applications we already know and getting bogged down in the safe and narrow path of the familiar.

Thus I have set out to examine, within this blog, a few of the central issues in the world of applications for children as we know it today and offer us parents a closer look at our conceptions and the choices we make for our children as the beginning of an orientation in the myriad pathways of this magical world.

What is a reading-fostering application?

We need to consider that in the “real world” children read on their own or assisted by a parent. The story, sometimes completed by illustrations, supplies all the incentive the child requires. When listening to a story read by a parent, children gave their imagination free rein, added depth and meaning drawn from their imaginary world and get all absorbed in the plot.

Children-book applications have gone far beyond the reading experience we know and present the reader – or rather user – with illustrations, music and interaction that draw the child into being physical involvement in the plot; but it simultaneously pulls the child’s attention away from the plot into playing a game, offering powerful alternative stimulations at the touch of a finger, such as moving figures, falling leaves, meowing cats and barking dogs, appearing and disappearing sun in the sky etcetera.

Children reading books on Children-book applications may well be drawn into more involvement in the story, on top of the mere reading, and thus inspired to tackle their reading more dynamically and make proof of more curiosity. Yet one cannot fail to wonder if more interactivity and over stimulation is such a good thing in a society so preoccupied with children and adults being afflicted with ADD (Attention-Deficit Disorder). 

The disturbing question is whether we have gone too far and loaded onto the reading experience – in itself the key to imagination and reflection – elements that drive the child away instead of into the story. 

All to often do we witness the child – having exhausted all the tactile options on the screen – getting bored and giving up without bothering to pursue the unfolding of the plot. We are well aware that the market imposes norms that seem obvious and integral; but as co-actors in the creation of the child’s world, we feel that the issue needs to be embarked. We, the creating adults, are naturally thrilled about our new successful interactivity and are tempted to think that this is what epitomizes the very idea of children applications whereas it may be worth telling our story and using interactivity and music simply as tools to enhance the plot and stir away from the idea that more interactivity means applications of a higher quality, the notion that is the rage today.

Which application would we choose for our children?

Or rather, which application appeals most to us?

We, adults and parents, are overwhelmed by the abundance, and mistake the richness of color and the countless possibilities offered us by the applications for the magic world of our dreams, so much so that  we  attribute to our children our own concept of value and quality. Oftentimes children are attracted to simple application and thus are more likely to get engrossed in the story.

A few golden rules to choosing an application:

−What does it contain, a story, a game?

Only once we really get the contents of an application can we determine how well its story is told.

−Does the interactivity the application contains support the story it tells or does it distract and create too many stimuli that render concentration on the contents difficult or even impossible?

−Can our child enjoy the application from beginning to end? The reasons a child abandons the application in mid stride may be that it is too long, its stimuli too exhausting, the music too loud or it is simply unsuitable for the child’s age.

−We need to keep in mind that we are active participants in the design of the child’s experience; it is us who download the application, who sit beside the young person whom we encourage to touch; we are also active partners to the reading experience, to the impressions and the excitement. It is therefore our job to talk to the child, discuss the contents, the messages and the values it contains, so that the young reader can get all the richness of contents and educational values the application has to offer.

Can the iPad promote interaction amongst children at play?

Reading or playing on the IPad is conceived by many as an individual act of the child or as quality time between children and parents. Yet I have often witnessed children share their favorite applications with their friends and even sit down to play together. My five-year-old daughter loves nothing better than to sit with her friend and bake virtual cakes and cookies using the  application Cookie Doodle.

It thus follows that there are applications out there that actually encourage interplay and sharing between children, which may become an important tool for us parents in our quest for offering our children better education. If we download preferably applications with creative contents or games played by more than one person, we encourage our children to share, not only the appliance we all are a little reluctant to let others touch, but the experience of playing together that promotes friendships and sharing in our modern world.

Can applications become instrumental in designing a better world for our children?

One of the issues we, application developers, who chose the contents and the educational line, find disturbing is to what extent can we take all those games and books we turn into applications and give them this additional something that will create the virtual bridge between the reality out there and the children’s inner world.

How can we harness children’s games to the endeavor of creating a better world for them? What would enable all those sophisticated, modern, colorful applications to effectively and convincingly pass messages teaching social responsibility, commitment and decency? The prevailing assumption is that today we dispose of the best educational’ literary and artistic tools to pass these messages; the question remains however: are we enrolled to the task?

The question is whether we are merely creating a new market and filling shop shelves with thousands of virtual games and books in millions of colors on ever improving screens, bent on pricing, marketing and innovation or if we are aware that the world of applications offers us a unique opportunity to pass on to our children healthy messages telling them in depth about themselves, their friends and the world they live in. We are well aware that the modern world sometimes fails to insist on fine detail but let us not forget that the real failure lies in progress without future and forgetting what is natural and healthy in this fast technological world.