Children's engagement with educational iPad apps: Insights from a Spanish classroom

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of a story-making app called Our Story and a selection of other educational apps on the learning engagement of forty-one Spanish 4-5-year-olds. Children were observed interacting in small groups with the story-making app and this was compared to their engagement with a selection of construction and drawing apps. Children's engagement was analysed in two ways: it was categorised using Bangert-Drowns and Pyke's taxonomy for individual hands-on engagement with educational software, and using the concept of exploratory talk as developed by Mercer et al. to analyse peer engagement. For both approaches, quantitative and qualitative indices of children's engagement were considered. The overall findings suggested that in terms of the Bangert-Drowns and Pyke taxonomy, the quality of children's individual engagement was higher with the OS app in contrast to their engagement with other app software. The frequency of children's use of exploratory talk was similar with the OS and colouring and drawing apps, and a detailed qualitative analysis of the interaction transcripts revealed several instances of the OS and drawing apps supporting joint problem-solving and collaborative engagement. We suggest that critical indices of an app's educational value are the extent to which the app supports opportunities for open-ended content and children's independent use of increasingly difficult features.

Emergent multilinguals learning languages with the iPad app iTEO: a study in primary schools in Luxembourg

“…The emergent multilinguals in the present study were well motivated and focussed when recording. A similar level of engagement has been found in other studies on digital storytelling (Flewitt, Messer and Kucirkova 2014;Kucirkova et al 2014).…”

“…Such learning outcomes are often viewed as a result of increased engagement. For instance, Kucirkova et al (2014) found that the storytelling apps under investigation engaged the 4-5-year-old Spanish children who collaboratively told stories. In order to be effective, language learning apps need to provide learners with open-ended language content and with opportunities to interact and take control over increasingly difficult language features Palalas 2011).…”

“…In order to be effective, language learning apps need to provide learners with open-ended language content and with opportunities to interact and take control over increasingly difficult language features Palalas 2011). In sum, apps that involve learners in the open and playful task of collaborative storytelling have been shown to engage learners and lead to learning (Kervin 2016;Kucirkova et al 2014;Pellerin 2014). Although digital tools have found their way into schools, teachers seem unsure of how to use the devices to enhance and sustain language learning and teaching.…”

3D Virtual Itinerary for Education Using Google Earth as a Tool for the Recovery of the Geological Heritage of Natural Areas: Application in the “Las Batuecas Valley” Nature Park (Salamanca, Spain)

“…The task is simplified by the extensive use of new technologies (smartphones, tablets, and iPads) amongst students [2,22], which provide additional motivation and interest [23]. To achieve these objectives, the following specific objectives are established:…”

“…Each placemark can be represented with different shapes and colors, which are available in the Google Earth application ( Figure 5A). As each stop is saved in "kmz" format, when you open the file, the Google Earth platform opens and automatically georeferences a stop [14,22]. Subsequent geological mapping in Google Earth was loaded into ortho overlap, in which a user can zoom "+" or "−" to approach or move away from a geosite to analyze the geological context of the sector study and provide a spatial overview of the itinerary, which is displayed using different 3D geological materials by observing their topographic position and lithologic sequences.…”