Toddlers and tablets: emerging apps take cues from learning science
2014; Routledge; Volume: 14; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-9664
Autores Tópico(s)Child Development and Digital Technology
ResumoThe first iPad was released in April 2010. Three years later, a Pew Internet survey found half of American parents with children at home own a tablet computer. Mosey on over to the iTunes app store, and 9 of the top 10 paid education apps are designed for small children, ages four and up. To summarize: families with means are loading up on tablets, and they are buying education apps targeted at preschoolers. I believe four-year-olds will shape the future of education technology (edtech), long before they ever set foot in a kindergarten classroom. And when I say four-year-olds, I'm just being politically correct. Two- and three-year-olds will get in on the action, too. Made for Little Fingers Touchscreens are the most intuitive interfaces ever created for small children. I still remember the weekend morning in 2008 when our 18-month-old padded into our bedroom, grabbed his mom's new iPhone off the nightstand, turned on his favorite song, and began pawing through photos. My wife and I looked on in abject horror, each accusing the other of secretly using the iPhone as an electronic babysitter. Horror morphed into guilt but later turned to awe. No one had to teach our toddler how to use a touchscreen. Leading app developer Duck Duck Moose believed it was designing for four- and five-year-olds when it noticed two-year-olds using its math apps. Dragonbox, an algebra program for children eight and up was being used by five- and six-year-olds. No one informed these kids they weren't ready for higher-level math. Children do incredible things when they are free to explore and learn. Duck Duck Moose co-founder Caroline Hu Flexer observes young children are demanding more-sophisticated, higher-quality education apps as they become accustomed to gaming apps made for adults, such as Angry Birds. But parents are still not fully sold on kids and tablets. According to the Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology survey, only 37 percent of parents who own a mobile device say they would offer it to their children to keep them busy. Seventy-eight percent would allow their kids to watch TV for the same purpose. My hypothesis: tablet computers are considered luxury goods are purchased for adults, not kids. The prospect of putting a $600 device in the grubby hands of a three-year-old is still not all appealing. As tablets become cheaper and more ubiquitous, children will gain greater access at home. Learn at Home Fairly or not, educators criticize edtech companies for producing uninspired products ignore learning science and yield meager results. School officials can exacerbate such problems through bureaucratic, irrational purchasing and poor program implementation. Early-childhood app companies have a chance to break through logjam and lead the entire sector forward. Many developers are bypassing schools altogether and going directly to families. By removing the layers between the people making the apps and the children using the apps, developers can respond more quickly to user behavior and make better products faster. They can also experiment with new approaches to learning without having to fight through the institutional inertia of this is how it's always been done or that will never work. For example, Minecraft is a sandbox game allows children to flex their creative muscles by building anything they can imagine. Think Sim City crossed with Legos. While educators continue to debate whether Minecraft should be used in schools to promote creativity, the app has been downloaded 20 million times at home, captivating an entire generation of children. Innovations will continue to emerge in the space between unstructured, informal learning and structured, formal learning and, like Minecraft, blur the line separating the two. To prevail in the home market, developers must create high-quality apps enhance the childhood experience. …
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