I just wanted readers of this blog to be aware that my latest book has just been released internationally. This is a book that tackles the tricky question of what might an authentic faith-based school look like. While this is about education in Christian schools, readers of other faiths might find it of interest.
The blog that I've been writing - Education, Pedagogy and Formation
- in association with the release of the book, might also be of
interest to Christian teachers and educators who seek authentic models
for Christian education.
Its chapters include: CONTENTS
PART 1: CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY, FORMATION, AND EDUCATION 1. Introduction: Is there such a Thing as Christian Pedagogy? 2. What is Christian Pedagogy? 3. Education as Formation in Communities 4. Standpoint, Pedagogy, and Formation 5. Pedagogy, Teaching, and the Kingdom 6. Meaning, Learning, and Formation PART II: EDUCATION AND LIFE
7. Classroom Life 8. Storytelling and Life 8. Imagination and Life 9. A Framework for Evaluating Classroom and School Life
It's
available through Amazon and all major international online bookshops.
There will also be copies available from major bookshops in Australia,
USA and the UK. If you would like review copies for journals and
other education publications please visit the publisher's site and
provide your details. ISBN numbers for each format can be found on the Amazon sites as well as others. The paperback ISBN is 1498283616HERE. The
book is available from Amazon in paperback ($US25 and
$AUD34.27), hardcover ($US45) and Kindle edition ($US9.04 &
$AUD11.99).
Regular readers of this blog will know that I've reviewed apps for iPad and android devices a number of times. My posts have included reviews of picture book apps (here), story apps of varied kinds (here) and apps that stimulate literacy, learning and creativity (here). In this post I review a number of educational apps that support children's learning in varied ways. I have grouped them into 5 categories for convenience. Some could well fit into more than one of these categories. Because the apps are so varied I have used a simpler rating scale than I typically use. In this post I attribute a single score from 1 (Poor) to 10 (Outstanding) to indicate the extent to which they meet these simple criteria:
The app is enjoyable to use
Children learn new things because of the app
The app makes it easier for children to learn
The app interactive elements don't distract from the key learning goals
The app is well designed, attractive and engaging
The app represents good value for money
1. Word & letter recognition, vocabulary & sounds
Purpose: Apps in this category help children to learn to read words, letters, understand sounds and improve memory.
In this app the traditional game of memory has been adapted for the iPad using animals as the topic of interest. It requires the user to match pairs of cartoon animals. Each animal makes a unique noise when tapped. It has 25 different
animals and a selection of backgrounds; it's fun for kids aged 3-6.
Peekaboo Barn
By Night and Day Studios
Price: $1.99
Rating: 6
This is a very cute word and sound app for preschoolers (1-4) who are just starting to learn to read words or for children with special needs. A toddler speaks the words. It teaches them the names of animals, the sounds they make and shows the word. The child taps the doors of the barn that open to reveal an animal. A voice tells you what it is; you hear the animal's sound and the name is displayed. You can also buy Peekaboo Wild and Peekaboo Forest that have a similar format.
This is primarily an app to help
children learn to write letters, but in the process it teaches letters and simple words. The app is quite intuitive and easy
to use. It encourages the child to form the script letters using the
accepted order of stroke making (this varies from one educational system to another). Each letter sounds is given and the word when it is completed. A child drawing then appears to
illustrate the word. The letters can also be drawn automatically with the surrounding screen acting as a type of simple xylophone. This reinforces the child's attempts.
3. Writing apps
Purpose: These apps encourage the development of writing (as opposed to simply handwriting as for the last app).
The 'Scary Story Kit' is an aid to enable you to add special effects to oral storytelling and assist any scary storyteller, giving them some tools to make their scary story truly come to life. It includes visual
and audio effects. The tools include a reactive light
which responds to sound, and adds to any torchlight storytelling. There is also an image creation, editing and manipulation suite. This has
paintbrush, a camera function, filters and effects to
create scary images. There is also a soundboard that allows you to develop customised sounds. While it is designed to support oral storyelling this can be extended by requiring the creation of a written story to be presented to an audience. Suitable for children aged 6-15 years.
StoryLines is an award-winning game of 'telephone' with pictures. You
can begin a StoryLine in lots of ways. For example, you can start with a common saying that is then added to. Or it could start with an opening line "One dark, dreary night in Detroit..." (no offence intended to friends in Detroit!). You can then pass the device around your friends, use Facebook, send it by email or open it in a browser to share with others. There is an option for a friend to illustrate it, give it a title and so on until completed. You can save
your favourite completed StoryLines in your Gallery, and share them on
Facebook.
3. Animation & Art Apps
Purpose: Apps in this category introduce children to some basic fundamentals of animation. In some ways they could be classified as art apps as well. I have written a post on animation apps previously (here) that has some more sophisticated apps.
PlayTime Theater
By Make Believe Worlds, LLC
Price: $2.99
Rating: 9
This has to be one of the best animation apps around for children aged 3-6 years. It is so easy to use and enables children to feel successful almost immediately as animators. The app allows kids to create, record and
playback their original puppet shows. It offers a castle as the puppet theatre setting and everything you need to put on and record your own
shows. The stage has moving parts, its own set of customizable cast, costumes, action props, sound effects and a library of original cinematic music. Every child I've introduced this app to can use it within minutes and love it.
This is a fun app that children aged 2-6 years will find easy to use and will love. This delightful animation features the Sesame Street character Elmo who wants you to make a monster friend! You get to choose a monster
body and then touch its face to give it eyes, nose and a hat. There are lots of options. When you finish, Elmo dances and
plays with your monster. The app encourages artistic interest, creativity and in its own way might raise interest in other more sophisticated animation or art apps.
There
are lots of art apps for kids on the App Store, but 'Kid
Art' stands out from the crowd. With its engaging backgrounds, bright
colours and ability three different themes, it offers plenty of
opportunities for your child to explore their artistic side. It enables them to create great images by dropping in images, painting etc.
The Play School Art Maker app is a fun way for kids to freely create
pictures, animated movies and story slideshows using their favourite
'Play School' toys and craft items. They can add their own audio
narration, upload their own photos as backgrounds, and save photos of
their art. Children can select Big Ted, Little Ted, Humpty, Jemima and their friends and choose from 6 backgrounds to create an animation with up to 8 slides. It is perfect for children aged 2-6 years and will encourage creativity and artistic ability.
This is an app that makes it easy for children aged 2-6 years to create images using an
animated sticker book. Children can interact with a variety of characters
while learning about fish, airplanes and many animals. Each
sticker character can be scaled, rotated and dragged onto each imaginary
scene. It includes scenes and stickers covering varied themes like the ocean, aviation, space, dolls, and
safari scenes. Kids as young as two will love this app.
4. Games
Purpose: Apps in this category use a game format to develop varied skills including memory, perspective, fine and gross motor skills, maths and language.
Pirate Puzzles
By Ayars Animation
Price: $0.99
Rating: 9
This
has to be one of my favourite non-story apps. Kids get to enjoy
completing nine pirate puzzles. But there's more. When completed, the
puzzle is
followed by an animated interactive surprise. Complete all puzzles and
enjoy a fully animated, fully interactive mystery pirate song. The catch
is that you must complete the puzzles to see the fantastic animations. This motivates the users to complete each puzzle.
This app is based on the movie of the same name. The user can take to the sky as Toothless, the sleek,
stealthy, fire-breathing dragon, with his new friend, Hiccup, the Viking
teenager. The child manipulates the iPad to fly Toothless through an expanded world from the Viking home Island of Berk to the
sea and the beautiful but forbidding lands beyond. The game has unlockable extras such as film stills and cheat codes. Children aged 4-8 will love this app. It is beautifully animated and is easy to use. A feast of imaginative exploration of the world of Toothless.
5. Knowledge Apps
Purpose: Apps in this category focus on specialised knowledge in some field of study.
This
is a stunning app for anyone interested in astronomy. You can
encourage your children to discover the wonders of the stars with the
high definition version of Star Walk. By using the camera in the iPad
2 or iPad3, you can point the tablet at the sky to view the constellations, discovering their names and history.
It identifies satellites, lets you search for specific planets
or stars and offers amazing images from deep space, to satisfy the
astronomer in every child. The app also offers new photos each day and
other features. But without a doubt the main attraction is the Augmented Reality mode, which lets you find constellations by pointing your iPad at the sky. Great for children aged 5-adults.
This is an amazing app. As the name suggest it leads you through a virtual dissection of a frog. It is a 'greener alternative' for teaching
dissection in the classroom and many children will find it a much easier experience to handle (no blood!). It offers an amazing introduction to anatomy and is suitable for children aged 8-16 years. It is ideal for children already learning about organs and organ systems as part of
their life science curriculum. As well, younger gifted children interested in animals will find it fascinating. It allows children to dissect the
specimen with clear step-by-step visual instructions and audio commentary. It allows 360 degree rotatable close ups of organs, additional information on every part of the body and the frogs’ life cycle. It also offers an anatomical comparison of frogs with humans, an
interactive quiz and detailed descriptions of the organs. Brilliant!
I've written a number of times about creativity and divergent thinking and how easy it is to stifle both (for example here). I've also written before about Sir Ken Robinson's ideas on the topic, and his view that school tends to educate '...people out of their creativity'. Children he suggests have a natural tendency towards novelty, experimentation and exploration of their world in new ways right from birth. While genes have something to do with creativity and it varies from one person to another, all humans have the potential to be creative and creativity can be fostered or discouraged. In a recent lecture he cites research from a longitudinal study of 1500 children over a 10-year period ('Breakpoint & Beyond: Mastering the Future Today'). The results of this work suggested that while at age 5 almost all children (98%) demonstrated high levels of creativity and divergent thinking, that at subsequent assessments at 5-year intervals, this dropped dramatically as children progressed through school.
In a recent lecture Sir Ken Robinson suggests that throughout the developed world governments are talking about reforming schools, but in every case they are simply seeking to go 'back to the future'. He suggests that around the world we are seeing governments continuing to support the maintenance of schools systems that:
1. Were devised in the 18th century age of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The Enlightenment led to a questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. The needs of the Industrial Revolution led to the creation of mass public education to train workers.
2. Deductive reasoning is valued and the school system turns children out factory-like after being tested and 'packaged' for life.
3. School education is completed in institutions that resemble factories, children are grouped in classes, grades and year groups and are shuffled through a system that approaches learning in discrete subjects and devalues the arts and creativity compared to the sciences.
4. The outcome he argues is that children are streamed into academic and non-academic groups and many find the experience boring and frustrating. In an age where children receive more stimulation than ever before through media, life experiences and communication technology, school he suggests, is simply mind-numbingly boring.
His presentation below takes just 11 minutes to view; it is a stimulating and challenging lecture.
How can we stimulate creativity?
a) The preschool child - Parents, carers and preschool teachers need to:
Provide time for children to explore their world.
Offer opportunities for structured and unstructured play.
Encourage experimentation with language and story.
Create an environment that encourages the child to invent novel solutions in play.
Ensure that children are not placed under too many restraints and structures.
Try to enhance opportunities for children to attempt to solve problems or explore new things.
Offer new experiences and situations that challenge them to find out, seek solutions and solve problems.
Make good use of technology without allowing it to dominate children's lives.
b) School-age children - The teacher or parent needs to:
Encourage learning, expression and exploration in situations that emphasise the generation of ideas, solutions and forms of expression that are divergent as well as convergent.
Ensure that the desire to evaluate learning and encourage excellence does not limit creativity.
Ensure that rewards do not simply privilege single answers or solutions, or pathways to reaching the single right answer (because of course there are correct answers to some things).
Integrate opportunities to learn as much as possible cutting across the traditional subject disciplines.
Provide time for children to explore, express and reflect on their learning.
Encourage self-discovery, inquiry learning and varied modes to expressing ideas.
Encourage exploration of the arts and humanities as well as the sciences.
ConclusionSchools constrain and conform our children to such an extent that originality, innovation and discovery are not valued as much as they should. As these disappear, so too do enjoyment, motivation and creativity. As John Holt expresses it:
What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out. (John Holt, 1981)
Related links and resources
'Creativity in Young Children' - James Moran (here)
My previous post 'The critical place of play, creativity and fantasy' (here)
I have written a series of 4 posts on play here or check out all posts tagged 'play' here and a number of posts on creativity in learning and language (see for example my post on being inventive with language here or all posts tagged 'creativity' here).
Research on families and demographic trends have demonstrated a number of significant changes in families and parental practices in recent decades. The trends can be summarized under four headings:
Family structures are changing – e.g. there are less children in families, women are having children later in life, there are more sole parent households, there are more blended families, children stay at home longer (and many more return as adults) etc.
Employment structures are changing - that have an impact on families, with more parents working in multiple jobs, more women back in the workforce, many workers working longer hours, more people working from home etc.
Fathers and mothers have changed roles and levels of engagement as parents - While there is a trend towards some fathers spending more time caring for children, for others longer working hours have affected family life. As well, the increase in women doing paid work outside the home has led to more children in the critical first five years of life being placed in childcare.
Research has highlighted the critical role that fathers have - For example, fathers have a significant impact on their children’s learning and behaviour. The influence on children’s education alone (the quality of which is also correlated with many other behavioural factors) is significant, as a UK centre on fatherhood has outlined.
In a synthesis of five key UK studies Goldman (2005) concluded that higher involvement of fathers in their children’s learning alone is associated with:
better class and exam results;
higher educational expectations & qualifications;
better attitude to school, attendance & behaviour;
less delinquent & criminal behaviour;
higher quality family relationships; and
better mental health.
Other research has suggested that the influence of fathers and family structures flows well beyond children’s learning. Qu and Soriano (2004) conclude that family formation has important implications for individuals and society in relation to health and wellbeing, financial security, life outcomes for children and population growth.
Research also suggests that fathers who show affection, give support and yet offer an authoritative parenting style, have a more significant impact on their children, when compared with fathers who adopt a more authoritarian and detached style. Other evidence indicates that who the father is, and what he does in life makes a difference. For example, Goldman reports research that suggest that high levels of antisocial behaviour (eg, not paying bills, aggressiveness and so on) in fathers were associated with sons displaying more difficult behaviour at home and school.
In summary, what many research studies show is that fathers have a significant influence on the cognitive, emotional and social development of their children and that this is even more significant for boys.
I just wanted readers of this blog to be aware that my latest book has just been released internationally. This is a book that tackles the tricky question of what might an authentic faith-based school look like. While this is about education in Christian schools, readers of other faiths might find it of interest. 
