6 Tips for Designing a Successful Educational Apps for ChildrenByCindy Boesel- Feb 23, 2015GAME DEVELOPMENTMobile is a major e-learning trend both educators and designers should watch closely in the upcoming year. Not only will mobile platforms provide an increasingly personalized experience, but also offer fun, gamified activities to further engage learners with the learning content.Designing a captivating and valuable education app for children isnt as easy as it sounds. Before taking on this task, have a look at these six practical tips to make your effort worthwhile and your app an instant hit.1. Come up with an original conceptWhat takes a children app from average to great is the idea behind it. Its a good start to think about the context for the app a narrative that unifies all its elements into a coherent whole. Children love stories and making tasks parts of a logical plot line will help them to engage with those activities and have more fun.2. Determine your selling pointOnce you think your idea for an education app can be woven into a fun narrative and served to children as an educational tool, you need to think about your apps selling point. What is unique about it? How does it stand out from other educational apps for kids?You can go for original artwork or custom-made sounds, but remember that a selling point is just the tip of the iceberg. Focus on it, but dont forget about the quality of your learning content or graphic design of the app they both play an important role in its attractiveness.3. Specify your app marketNow that your idea is well-defined you need to consider the possible platforms on which youd like to market the app. Its always better to start with a less competitive markets for educational apps, such as Windows Phone or Android.This will allow your app to attract more interest and once you brand gains some recognition, you can successfully introduce the app to more competitive platforms. Starting out on platforms with high level of competition wont get your anywhere and your app will be lost in the crowd of other educational tools.4. Create a prototype and test itBefore launching the development process, its a good idea to create a prototype and then test it with some specialized UX tools. Rethink your graphics, check if navigation is intuitive and child-friendly and dont clutter the screen with menu buttons of social media plugins. Avoid placing banners or ads in many places. Children tend to touch every spot on the screen and you dont want them to be constantly redirected to other apps.5. Dont forget about scalingWhen launching your app, youre probably less concerned about the future than about the immediate response of the market to your new creation. Remembering that scaling is a future option will save you lots of time later on adjusting your app to a wider audience.Making sure that all your assets like code, artwork and sounds are reusable is a smart move they can all be put to work in the development of other applications under your brand later.6. The language issueIf at some point you realize that your audience is dispersed around the world, its essential to use language localization technology to bring your app closer to potential audience. Cooperate with native speakers to develop nice description and app content.Furthermore, if your app is multilingual, its a good idea to automate generating updated build with special scripts. Doing all of this manually will be difficult and time-consuming.Bearing in mind the tips listed above, youre simply bound to create an engaging and interesting app that will help children in acquiring new knowledge and testing their skills.

Cindy BoeselCindy Boesel works atBizStats.co.uk. She is interested in IT startups and the ways mobile is changing business globally. As an IT professional and a mother of a four-year-old, she also follows the latest trends in gaming and educational app industry. Sha has co-authored many successful online projects. Find her onTwitter.

6 Ways to Create an Immersion Learning English Class23 de fev de 2015

Immersion language learning, or ILL, is widely accepted as the most effective classroom learning program available.If you are a teacher (or even a student trying to learn English as a second language), its not likely that your school offers a full immersion program for learning English. But you can create an immersion environment in your own classroom!As we have already discussed in this blog, the key to language acquisition is experiencing it and making emotional links with the language in real-world context. This can be difficult when you live in another country and are not exposed to the language you are learning except when you enter the classroom. And then, many traditional English courses rely on grammar exercises, vocabulary memorization and exams. But today, more and more schools around the world are beginning to change their programs to use immersion in the classroom.An immersion program means that students are learning a variety of subjects in English (or the language they are trying to learn) at least 50% of the time. While there is an initial drop in student performance when they participate in an immersion program, statistics show that they do catch up, and usually continue to excel further than their peers in the long run.While you might not be able to influence other teachers or your schools director into incorporating a full immersion program, you can try to implement this method into your own classroom!Here are 6 Tips for Creating an Immersion Language Learning Classroom:1. Use Familiar Stories.Stories help students connect with language on a personal level, as they learn the patterns, tone and authentic vocabulary of the language. With stories like myths, legends, fables and fairy tales, learners create a context for the language. Then, all activities can be developed around one story.2. Task-Oriented, not Textbook-Oriented.Giving students problems to solve, research to do, or a presentation to give in which they must conjugate verbs on their own and find vocabulary allows them to remember more easily and quickly than doing workbook language exercises.3. Include Culture.Lessons on the role of communication in the culture allow students to understand context, and gives a deeper meaning in the words they are learning. Learning about different ways of thinking and reacting can help understand the culture and thus the way a language is spoken, not just the rules. This can be achieved through videos, stories, theater, books, poetry, food, music and more.4. Allow Them to Fail.Learning a language takes time and a lot of patience, and most multi-linguists speak of an a-ha! moment that they have experienced when the language starts becoming clear for them. It is a mix of not only spoken words, but gestures, body language and cultural knowledge that culminates over time and eventually leads to a moment of clarity. But getting there requires failing, forgetting, and stuggling. This means continuous assessment in the classroom will be a more reliable measure of progress, as opposed to just one exam score to test what they know.5. Well-rounded Curriculum.Teaching various topics from science to social studiesin Englishhas proven to have the best effects. This is the true basis of immersion learning, which includes all of the aspects mentioned above: culture, context, emotion, problem solving, authenticity, richness and meaning. Its also a lot more interesting to learn about real-world topics than reading a dry text in an English grammar book!6. Use Online Resources.One great supplement to immersion learning isan e-learning English coursestudents can take online from home. This reinforces their listening and speaking abilities with custom settings and lessons. Things like pronunciation and sentence structure can be improved at their own pace. Some grammar points can also be reinforced, supplementing the classrooms focus on context and culture.*****Have you ever tried to implement an immersion environment in your classroom?How did the students react? Parents or other teachers?Do you think immersion is the best solution for classroom language learning?Why or why not? We enjoy reading your comments below!SourcePhotoApril Buchanan