Tag Archives: app design

While young children are off school over winter break, many families will be looking for activities to keep kids learning and having fun. On cold winter days, creating art or music together using a touchscreen app is one way for caregivers to connect and support the cognitive and social development of their early learners.  Research on Joint Media Engagement (JME) from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center demonstrates that media can provide important social, emotional, and cognitive experiences for children when…

This week marks the introduction of Sago Mini Boxes, a new service to promote play-based learning at home. It’s a major milestone for our team, and one that is rooted in many of the ideas of innovators such as Joan Ganz Cooney. So how did a team best known for preschool apps come to develop a physical box service? The Sago Mini apps are really the outcome of two big ideas which underlie all of our work. The first is…

A growing body of research points to the importance of engaging children in science from an early age, for both their future trajectories in science careers and school readiness. For some children, preschool provides the chance to engage in meaningful science learning. But, for the 46% of American 3- and 4-year-olds who do not attend preschool, opportunities for science enrichment are limited. For such children, accessing science experiences depends almost entirely on parents. However, many parents have limited experience supporting…

Children’s literature is not known for its diversity—either in terms of diverse characters within books, diverse authors and illustrators, or diverse staff within the publishing industry. Nancy Larrick’s famous article, “The All White World of Children’s Books,” was published in 1965, and sadly, the situation is not that different today. Yet those responsible for putting books in the hands of children know how important it is that books for young people provide what Rudine Sims Bishop calls “mirrors, windows, and…

This partial transcript of the App Fairy podcast has been edited for length and clarity.  Carissa Christner: Today I’m very excited to bring to you an interview with Caroline Ingeborn of Toca Boca. Toco Boca makes the very best play apps that I have seen anywhere, and if you have been playing apps with your children and you haven’t heard of Toca Boca I’d be very surprised. I think the last time I checked out the top 10 paid apps…

Researchers and practitioners have long known that when it comes to digital media for kids, quality is key. But what does it mean for a children’s app to be good or bad? How do specific features and design decisions affect the children who engage with them? If parents want to find high-quality content, what exactly should they be looking for? As part of a team of collaborators at Microsoft Research, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington, I…

Necessity is the mother of invention. When Mind Meets Music was awarded an Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) grant through the United States Department of Education in 2014, one of the grant requirements was to utilize technology as a vehicle to support learning. This mandate sparked an idea, sending the organization down the previously unexplored path of app development. Though this venture into the technological realm was uncharted waters for our team, we’re no strangers to innovation. Mind…

This partial transcript of the App Fairy podcast has been edited for length and clarity. Please listen to the full episode here, and visit appfairy.org for more information about Ahoii. Carissa Christner: In today’s App Fairy episode I’ll be interviewing Wolfgang Schmitz from an app company called Ahoiii. Most of the Ahoii apps feature a tiny little sailor in a blue and white striped shirt, and his name is Fiete. Their newest app is one called Fiete Cars, and it’s…

When Derek Lomas learned that 50% of 8th grade students in the United States can’t put a series of fractions in order from least to greatest—a skill that’s generally taught to students in 4th and 5th grade—he knew that something needed to be done. “Fractions are often the mathematical sticking point for kids because it’s the area where math truly gets hard for the first time,” Derek explains. “Without a firm grasp of fractions, students have a hard time learning…

Sago Sago‘s apps are charming interactive experiences that aim to engage the youngest players. We recently had the opportunity to ask CEO Jason Krogh to share the story behind the company and to tell us more about their most recent game, “Friends,” which encourages young children to go on a digital play date.   Can you tell us a little bit about your path to developing apps for children? Like most people in the field, I stumbled into it. Shortly…