Does the learning app:
Present problems, scenarios, etc in more than just words? For example, does the app show a picture and base the questions on that picture? Do the students have to answer questions based on a short 30 second video?
Present a variety of different problems? For example, can math students do the math in number format (2+2 = ), word format (two and two equals), and visual format (two apples and two apples =)
Have a variety of ways that students can input the answer ? Is the app an A, B, C, D click on the button choice or does it allow students to move things around to show the answer? Can the students say the answer?
Identify when the students have a correct answer?
Identify when students have an incorrect answer? For example, the program says, “No, try again.”
Tell which part of the student’s answer is incorrect? Or tell how the student was incorrect? For example, did the student incorrectly spell the first part of the answer? Did the students confuse two words?
Allow the students to try again? For example, the program repeats the same question or a similar one.
Supply at least one strategy to understand the correct answer through explaining the concept? Does the app provide a strategy to help the students overcome this learning gap? Does the app supply text clues, visual clues, or sound clues to help the student learn the concept so he/she can generalize to other questions of the same concept?
Tell the correct answer?
Keep track of the students’ progress? Does it show the students what they have mastered before they move on? For example, the app can have a checklist of the various levels of the learning goal.
Make this data available to the teacher? Can the teacher sort through the data by class, from high scoring students to low scoring students, and by specific learning goal?
Move the students on to a higher level once the student has shown proficiency? How many questions reveal proficiency? For example, does the app check student progress after ten questions or do students have to do thirty before it proclaims student success?
Move students up Bloom’s level of thinking? Do the students move up to do a real life example of using that learning? Are they put in a real life scenario through a video? Or do they go from abstract practice to more abstract practice?
Have the student spend more time on learning than on playing reward games?
How is this mobile app different from a website version of the same material? What advantage does the mobile version have?
cross-posted at http://eduwithtechn.wordpress.com
Harry Grover Tuttle teaches English and Spanish college courses at Onondaga Community College and blogs at Education with Technology. He is also the author of several books on formative assessment.
