Back in January, I wrote about my Christmas experience with my young nephew Peter and his quick exploration of one of the apps on my iPad.
Since then, I've had a look around and realised that finding a suitable app that gives the chance for exploration and learning from experience is not an easy job – especially for mathematics. Most of the apps focus on the practice of basic numeracy skills. I am not saying that practising of these skills is not needed, it's just that I would like to give the opportunity to a very young user to explore concepts and then have the option of generalising them in abstract mathematics notation, and then practicing the relations between addition and subtraction and other operations.
In my search for some interesting maths apps for my iPad, I came across Go Count!. Costing only 69p (or US$0.99), this app seems to follow the principle of moving youngsters from graphical representations of quantity to the numerical abstract throughout three simple games. The games feature basic graphics that do not deter from the mathematics. This app is something I will be trying with my nephew when I visit him next, to see whether it will engage him for longer than the previous app he tried. It has to be said that this app is obviously written by someone who clearly understands the introduction of numbers and linking quantity with abstract representation.
I had a look at a few other apps available for early counting and, I have to say, while some of them are good, others start straight away with numbers as the representation of a quantity. Also, there is a lot of 'stuff' on the screen that distracts from the task/game. Many of these apps are not as intuitive as you would need them to be for a three-year-old to play and explore ... or is it me who finds them confusing?
So, what would I like to find?
Apps that provide scaffolding for the exploration of a concept and then further develop the concept and apply it in a simple practice. Apps should be clear of all the graphics that may distract from the task at hand. Graphics, where they are included, need to be correctly used to support the understanding.
To give you an opposite example, I will pick on very nicely designed app called Counting Bees. This game is based on the idea of children directing bees towards flowers in order to get a predetermined number of bees on the flower. Again, if you want to explore it yourself, this app is 69p (US$0.99).
The target number of bees is predetermined by the game and kids are only given a verbal representation of the number. There is no way for the child to correct themselves if they make a mistake ... since there is no chance of making one.
So, for this game, the child needs to:
My question is: if a child knows the words that represent the symbols for numbers and he/she is able to count one by one to the target number, won't this game be a bit boring for them?
Furthermore, when a child achieves the task, they see how the honey gets filled up into an iconic teddy bear shaped bottle. There is one issue with this: when the child counts 5 bees and then counts 10 bees, the quantity of the honey collected is not doubled in volume as the bees are doubled in numbers. Does this mean that some bees are not collecting the same amount of honey as others? Or am I just being childish here? But, hey, it is a valid question, not to mention that is inaccurately representing the relationship between the quantities.
This brings me to another point that I discussed with one of my colleagues recently. Should someone assess such apps and assign a quality mark to them? These are not just games that are good or not to engage with, but, if given to children, sometimes can cause more damage than help ... I wonder if someone should write to Apple?
In the meantime, please send me any apps you have tried (especially with kids) that you think are sound and accurate in addressing mathematics concepts.
Also, I'd welcome suggestions of apps that support the exploration in learning in any area and in any subject.
I wish that we could create a section in our Promethean community where these apps are going to be evaluated by people like us and shared on a quality level ... perhaps an idea for a new group? Would any other Planet members be interested in this too?
Enjoyed this? You may also like An iPad for Christmas? Learning through Apps, by Serge Tasic.
In order to comment on this blog and any other article in the Planet community, you first need to register with the site.
Apple and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
I have been piloting the use of an ipad in class with a set of 26 children and 26 ipads. I chose a maths app to use with the 6 year olds... Math Bingo. This was chosen specifically not to introduce a concept or extend a concept, but to allow practice of mental maths. We used this app to complement traditional methods of worksheets or holding up number fans, etc. This feed up the class teacher to work with groups of children or indiviuals. It was also interesting watching the diferent methods children used to anwer the questions, such as fingers, apparatus, and number lines. It was alo wasy to spot those children which needed none.
The majority of our 6 year olds picked up the ipad quickly, although just as most subjects there were those more comfotable that others with the equipment.
The children enjoyed answering the questions ( which can be at various levels) and rying to get a line of right answers, resulting in 'BINGO' and gining a bug. Bugs were used in a game at the end (and we enjoyed talking about 'work' and 'play' with the children.) Children quickly understood that to get a better score, more bugs were required... therefore more games played. It was great seeing the speed of response of some children increase. Others developed accuracy, others neither.
Our main gripe with the app is the limit of 6 players.. great for the home market, but not for a large school. Also the tune was a little too catchy, so we quickly taught the children how to mute!
AS for a rating, that would be good for a general guide, but one mans gold is anothers rubbish. The sheer abundance of apps appearing on the market also makes this difficult.
Over the last week we have also tried out the 'bee-bot' app, puppet pals, monty's quest and strip designer. All of these were highly successful too in different ways.
Hi Serge
A really interesting article. I use an iPad in the early years setting I work in. I have downloaded numerous apps and have found it frustrating that the initial information and screen dumps of the app are not always a true reflection of what you get. I have found though a lot of apps that are great and work well with young children. The new BeeBot app is very good and I have also used the Ladybird Maths app to support work with learning about sharing in maths. You can read about our learning with sharing here blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/.../DensRoadPrimaryOne . We are also investigating Book Creator which is a great app for creating your own books.
My children and students enjoy the free app "Slice It". Fraction and percent are shown when trying to slice shapes into equal size pieces.
I'm the developer of the Go Count! app that Serge refers to in his post. I thought it might be interesting to share some of the thinking that went into it.
First, some context. I come from a maths education (rather than ICT) background - I've been a teacher, consultant and author in my time, and was a Senior Adviser for secondary mathematics with the National Strategies in England until they were wound up last year. I did also have something of a computing background - I learnt to program at school in the days of punched tape storage, and I've been at it ever since in one way or another - Fortran at university, Basic on the RM380Z and Hypercard on the Mac. For a few reasons - which I'll describe briefly below - I found the launch of the iPad really exciting, especially in terms of its educational potential. As the National Strategies were drawing to an end, I decided I needed another project, so I taught myself programming for the iPad and set about building an app.
So, what was I trying to do with Go Count?
First, I wanted to explore the unique features of the iPad - e.g. the ability to interact directly with objects on the screen, rather than using an abstract proxy of mouse or trackpad. I think that this is really important - with the iPad, if I want to pick something up and move it across the screen, I 'just do it' - there's no need to use a separate tool (the mouse) somewhere else, or coordinate the movement of my finger on a trackpad with the motion of an artificial pointer on the screen. In fact there's no need for that pointer at all. I think this leads to a much more direct and immersive experience for users, and makes the technology accessible for much younger users who have not learnt the 'mouse and pointer' conventions that formed the basis of the previous generation of user interfaces.
Second, and closely related to the point above, is the idea of manipulating mathematical objects and exploring their behaviour. When you look at a lot of the mathematical education apps available now, this seems to be a missed opportunity. Interaction generally takes the form of clicking a button to select the correct answer, and many apps are simply thinly-disguised electronic flash cards. I think we can do better than this. I take a lot of inspiration from the work of Professor David Tall, whose influential work on perceptual learning in mathematics I would enthusiastically recommend. On this view, the most successful form of mathematical learning takes place when children learn to deal with 'precepts' - mathematical objects or systems that encapsulate both state and behaviour. For example, a child could be taught a simple multiplication fact (like 5 × 7 = 35), and be encouraged to commit that to memory alongside countless others. Or they could learn the mathematical structure which means that 5 × 7 = 35 → 7 × 5 = 35 → 35 ÷ 7 = 35 → 35 ÷ 5 = 7; and 5 × 7 = 35 → 5 × 70 = 350, etc. It's clearly far more powerful for children to be taught to explore and manipulate the behaviour of mathematical systems like this; the challenge is to enable this exploration in educational software, and I think we've barely scratched the surface.
Third, it needs to be fun. Children enjoy using this technology, and we should celebrate and participate in that enjoyment. However, a lot of existing apps seem to be based on a rather dismal philosophy - 'maths is really quite boring, so we will disguise it as an intergalactic space battle, fooling you into doing a load of decimal additions without really noticing'. I wanted to avoid that - the mathematical ideas should provide the interest and excitement.
Finally, I wanted the pedagogy to be right. I chose a straightforward (if rather crowded) section of the market for my first app - counting sets of up to 10 objects. I was quite disappointed to see how poorly designed a lot of existing apps were in terms of their understanding of the learning process, and I wanted to address this. This wasn't some hugely sophisticated educational critique - I just thought that an app should incorporate some of what any good classroom teacher would know about children's learning.
So, Go Count! was the result of the reflections above and a few weeks of designing and coding. I think it successfully addresses some of my concerns; I hope the pedagogy is right, children do seem to enjoy it, and it does provide a direct, easy to use educational experience. Probably the least developed aspect is still the opportunity to manipulate and explore the behaviour of mathematical objects. That's what I'm focusing on in my next app, Go Figure! Like the very popular Math Bingo app, this will provide game-based practice in a range of calculations. What I'm trying to do that's different is to provide opportunities for exploration and strategic thinking (rather than just clicking the correct answer as quickly as possible, which is the prevailing paradigm), and incorporating the 'fun' elements directly into the learning activities, rather than making them a separate reward.
"...a lot of existing apps seem to be based on a rather dismal philosophy - 'maths is really quite boring, so we will disguise it as an intergalactic space battle, fooling you into doing a load of decimal additions without really noticing'..." - so true, and a trap that even big name education companies too often fall into. It's one thing trying to make maths interesting, but the concept shouldn't overtake the maths - it's the learning rather than the packaging that needs to be engaging. I'd be interested to hear more about Go Figure! as you develop it.