An evaluation of educational apps for preschool-age children in Android and iOS
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Abstract
Applications (apps) available as educational in digital app stores for preschoolers claim that they offer to learn content on a wide range of basic academic skills, including counting, reading, and pattern recognition. This research aimed to investigate the educational quality of a range of educational applications for Android and iOS Operating Systems aimed at preschool-age children, i.e., children from 3 to 5 years old. The evaluation was done using two scientific tools: the rubrics published by Lee & Cherner entitled "A Comprehensive Evaluation Rubric for Assessing Instructional Apps" and by Papadakis, Kalogiannakis & Zaranis entitled "Designing and creating an educational app rubric for preschool teachers". The research results showed that most proclaimed educational applications did not have a real educational value. Research extensions are discussed.
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