- Just posted Five Great iPad Apps for Toddlers – NYTimes.com http://t.co/F7kQ5dQ #
- LEGO Universe free taste planned for August (1 avatar, 2 zones — limited version) #dustormagic http://t.co/sI72AvM #
- Prosecutor: No evidence that boy, 7, was taught to drive http://t.co/WzS4RVp (Hmmm.. wonder where he learned those skills). #
- LEGO Universe free taste planned for August (1 avatar, 2 zones — limited version) #dustormagic http://t.co/sI72AvM #
- Prosecutor: No evidence that boy, 7, was taught to drive http://t.co/WzS4RVp (Hmmm.. wonder where he learned those skills). #
This app is a collection of 18 puzzles. The quick-moving format resembles Nintendo’s WarioWare, only with a multi-touch screen, and a health-related theme. You’ll move a collection of food through a maze of intestines, drag and drop bones into place, flick splinters out of a hand, or drag and drop a set of gears, based on shape and size, to get the brain working. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Like other ebooks, the pages of this app have features that are marked with sliders, spinning wheels, strings and so on. Options are available for turning on or off the background music. You can also turn the swipe mode on or off. The book is a bit hard to get started with, and you can’t easily jump to a select page. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This sequel to “StarWars: The Force Unleashed” (2008) is a “hurriedly thought out excuse for you to plow through a bunch of Storm Troopers” according to Chris, our intern tester. He reported “if you wanted to, you could skip all the cut scenes and really not miss anything. And this is coming from someone who tends to like cut scenes.” Even if a game is lacking a compelling story, it can still be fun. There’s something cathartic about slashing your way through wave after wave of essentially defenseless enemies. Aside from learning a few new attacks here and there things can get old. The bottom line? This edition isn’t as good as its predecessor. While this game had its moments and might be worth a borrow, it’s hard to justify the investment.
Teaches: fighting, timing, logic. LucasArts. www.lucasarts.com, $30. Best for ages 8-up.
Rating: 
or .775%
This game for the Nintendo 3DS features more than 100 timed Nanogame (very short game) challenges. Like WarioWare, the challenges that last no more than five seconds each, and require extremely fast reaction time. Content includes several video clips featuring Patchy the Pirate, plus a drawing activity, where you can sketch using a pallet of colors. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Shape-O is a matching game where you build objects out of shapes, and then spell the word, by dragging and dropping each letter into place. Geometric shapes are pieced together to form images including animals, plants, landscapes, transportation, faces, robots, dinosaurs, pirates and many more. Content includes 100 puzzles. Features include the ability to turn off the background music or the game sounds. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
From Thinkfun, the creators of the original Rush Hour game, comes a well designed touch screen version with slide-to-park interactivity. The goal is to arrange a set of tightly parked cars in order to get one car (colored red) through the parking lot exit. There are 2500 games and four levels in all, and the game remembers your current level. Other smart features include an instant undo, a hint, and the ability to replay a level, letting you retrace your steps through the puzzle. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This is the second Phineas and Ferb adventure for the Nintendo DS we’ve reviewed. Like the first, you can swap between characters to work your way through each level. Play patterns include skating, riding in mine carts, fighting aliens, and do surfboard tricks. Minigames include jet pack and X-ray goggles, along with a DSi specific camera controlled minigame. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Back in the 1940′s, children’s book author Dorothy Kunhardt started putting “real” elements on the pages of her children’s books, like sand paper for a scratchy beard, a mirror, or soft bunny fur for the bunny. Her daughter Edith (for whom the first books were made) went on to expand the concept. The iPad version of “Pat the Bunny” brings the concept to the glass screen. Notable features include page “preview” icons that have replaced the traditional swipe, to turn pages. There are two modes of play: Read and Paint. The Paint mode lets you reveal the hidden colors with large swipes — a nice technique that makes you feel powerful. Read lets you explore interactive elements on each page, including short descriptive lines of text. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Want to give children a highly successful symmetry experience? Paint My Wings starts with a butterfly who says “paint my wings!” Using a palette of colors, you finger paint lines or dots on one of the wings, and can see it mirrored on the other wing, in real time. It is easy to save art as a picture, or clear the screen to start over. Note that there is no “undo” or options like fill, textures or layers. This is a very simple experience. Teaches: art, creativity, symmetry. Toca Boca. http://tocaboca.com/, $0.99. Best for ages 2-6.
Editor’s Choice Award.
Rating: 
or .94%
This potty training app, based on the book of the same name by Alona Frankel, is available in both boy and girl versions. Each page has touch and hear labeling. So when you touch the diaper, you hear the word, and see the word highlighted in the story. In the story, Joshua and Prudence learn about different body parts and functions and what the potty is used for. There are two music modes so young children can sing-along to The Potty Song. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This app features Olivia, a talking pig who is also a magician, as featured on the Nickelodeon show. Content includes 16 magic tricks, each performed by gliding your finger over the screen, copying a pattern. You start by finding a hidden object in a scene, and then trace a pattern over the screen. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Created in Berlin by Heidi Wittlinger, this app starts with a peaceful outside view of a farmhouse during the summertime. As you hear the crickets gently chirping, you can touch seven areas of the scene, where you find an animal that is still awake. Hidden in each scene (but easy to find) is a light switch. Once touched, the scene darkens, and the animals gently settle into their sleeping mode. The sheep snuggles into some straw, the chicks snuggle with their mother, and the dog settles in his doghouse. Once “in bed” the animal can be touched but it stays asleep. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This app features five games that introduce basic musical concepts, namely pitch, rhythm and notes. To move between the activities, you touch a mouse who flies to the next activity. Games include: a game of musical simon, where you listen to the notes and copy a pattern; a rhythm game lets you touch a stream of flying birds, each representing a note, to play a song; a monster dancing game; a rhythm activity where you can play along with a song by touching a drum, cymbals, triangle, maracas, egg shaker, or rubber duck; and notes, where you are shown two bars of a treble clef line and children can move the notes to hear the notes played and labeled instantly. The library of tunes consists of 15 simple tunes, either sung or played on cello or violin. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Best described as an “eBoardBook” for babies and toddlers, this is an interactive adaptation of Sandra Boynton’s book for toddlers. Text features include the ability to touch each word to hear it read individually with highlighting, or touch a paragraph marker to hear the entire paragraph, read in context with word highlighting. Pages turn gradually with a swipe. Options include the ability to adjust the background music. You can touch the sun or the moon to toggle between night and day, and each animal makes a sound, or sings in harmony with others. For example, children can fill the page with quacking ducks (each touch equals another duck), or help three pigs sing. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
One of the oldest math facts franchises has made a historic move to the multi-touch screen, in this edition of Math Blaster Hyperblast for the iPad. Featuring an outer space theme, the goal is to outsmart the alien robots by solving math facts problems as fast as possible. As with other Math Blaster games, you start by choosing which types of problems you want to practice, from addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To play, you grip the screen on the sides, and tilt (like a steering wheel) to move through a tube full of things to avoid. You use your thumbs to launch mines or missiles to clear your path of problems. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This didactic set of multiple-choice problems presents four letters or pictures, and verbally prompts children to “touch the picture that starts with the letter ‘Z’.” In a second mode, the letters are presented as rotated images. Children are asked to find the correct orientation. Children earn stars with each correct answer; there’s no ongoing assessment. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The content of this app comes from the Ladybird Baby Touch Books (www.ladybird.com). There are four themed areas (Farm, Sea, Animals and Vehicles). There are no preferences, so you can’t adjust the music or get back to the main menu. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Designed to introduce preschoolers to pre-reading and critical thinking skills, this app contains four activities: Bug Catcher – practice colors, shapes, number recognition and counting while you search for wiggly creatures to complete the collection; Present Search – follow the directions and listen to the hints to discover which of the pets is hiding a prize; Matching Duckies – a memory game where you must match the quacking ducks to reveal a message; and Barnyard Fun – master upper and lowercase letters with the help of barnyard cows. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Featuring clear illustrations and text-to-speech features (touch a word to hear it read aloud) this interactive version of Tad Hills children’s book tells the story of how Rocket the dog learned to read. Besides the story, there are two games: a multiple choice word recognition quiz and a letter recogntion game, where you try to match as many letters as possible. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This two-player drop in, drop out game lets you take on the role of one of four fantasy characters from the Gormiti cartoon. In the story, Razzel is cleaning the library and knocks some old books into a Portal. The books travel down to the Island of Gorm, where a battle between vast armies is going on. The books land at the feet of Magmion, the evil Lava Gormiti, who reads a book and learns the legend of five sacred amulets which have been scattered across Gorm. Once the amulets are reunited the holder will have the ability to open an inter-dimensional portal to Earth. The Lords of Nature need to use all their powers to stop Magmion and save Earth. Got all that? The story is explained with subtitles in an introduction. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Finger-based coloring apps for the iPad abound, but this is the first designed to work with a special cigar-sized, AA battery-powered stylus. The stylus is called iMarker (made by Griffin Technologies, at http://bit.ly/fl84LO). First, you download the free app, which lets you try three pages with your finger. To unlock the content, you must buy the iMarker ($30, http://www.griffintechnology.com). So your $30 iMarker stylus is also a key. To unlock the app, you follow a zig-zag pattern on the screen with the stylus. Once unlocked, you see three options from the main menu: Make a Coloring Page, Coloring Pages and Free Draw. The coloring pages consist of animated black-line drawings. As you color, the graphics animate themselves. In an underwater scene for example, the fish might start swimming. You have the option of freezing the action, and toggling on or off background sounds. Content includes five categories, each with six “pages.” You can also make your own by choosing a background and dragging and dropping elements onto it. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is a collection of interactive pictures done by Charley Harper, a mid-century modern illustrator, designed to let your child explore the forest and discover animals hiding behind tree stumps and foliage. When they see something moving they can tap it to see what it is, learn the names of the animals, and hear the real sounds they make in the wild. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The NAEYC/Fred Rogers Center draft position statement on technology and young children is doing its work, dredging up spirited debate on children and technology. As a result, CTR has been busy. Besides participating in a webinar on the topic, I’ve been watching the public reaction to the position statement. I’m pleased to report that due to careful listening by authors Chip Donohue and Roberta Schomburg, the debate seems to be simmering, marking an important transition in the debate. For the first time, we can start evaluating what the screen does, instead of the screen itself. See page 5.
New Cooney Survey Explores Family Digital Use
Family Matters: Designing for a Digital Age by Lori Takeuchi summarizes a survey of 800 parents of children ages 3-10. While there seemed to be few surprises, there were a few items worth noting. For example, 57% of the families recognize that digital media presents ways for children to converse and connect with friends and family, but two-thirds of parents restrict their children from chatting online and visiting social networking sites. Only half of parents play with their kids on newer platforms such as video game consoles. Instead they report spending time with traditional activities, including watching television, reading books and playing board games. In summarizing the study in the Huffington Post, JGC Director Michael Levine writes “The study concludes that when it comes to digital media’s influence on children, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Kids obviously need guidance to understand the critical skills that are required in a ubiquitous media environment. It is critical that industry, researchers and policymakers understand that when it comes to promoting learning and positive social habits, families still matter most.”
Inside the Light Bulb
Before 1880, when the sun went down, you either went to bed or you burned something — either whale oil or kerosene. But then Thomas Edison figured out how to make a filament glow using electricity, and the technology shifted human culture. Edison’s 130 year old design is starting to burn out, however. It is being replaced by CFL and LED light bulbs. Do you know what those letters mean? Have a look, on page 4 or visit LittleClickers.com
Coming in July: A First Look at Games for the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo WiiU
Now that we’ve seen what’s coming from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, what software is coming? In the July issue of CTR, we’ll start listing some of the more noteworthy new games and offer more details on the WiiU and PlayStation Vita.
Just curious — Have you ever written a fake review for iTunes or Amazon.com? Would you like to clear your conscience? I’d like to find publishers who are paying people to write positive reviews.
All responses will be considered confidential. Contact Warren Buckleitner using our “contact us” form.
- #nest11 is a wrap; time to synthesize; thanks Doug Lynch et al for the nest time. #
- Gregory Milken"time for a consumer reports for the education sector" #nest11 #
- Katzman "lots to learn from Asia" #nest11 #
- For profit needs and advocate in the non-profit space #nest #
- It takes innovation to create a context for innovation #nest11 #
- #nest11 Katzman "there should be an award for getting out of the way" of innovation. #
- Reminder to well funded edu-funders — go visit a classroom for a day; better yet try to be a teacher for a day #nest11 #
- Human development principles and theories can shape research questions related to educational quality #nest11 #
- Create an ongoing database with really granular data on interventions; do research against that database #nest11 #
- "we need a national system of measurment." #nest11 #
- #nest11 important to be open to different sources of research — a more level playing field of who drives data #
- If you can spell entrepreneur perhaps you can become one #next11 #
- #nest11 researchers don't like risks– we need a different type of research environment #
- At UPENNs #nest11 talking about innovation #
- Toys for the Father Who’s Not Too Grown Up – NYTimes.com http://t.co/OTgRkEA #
- #nest11 is a wrap; time to synthesize; thanks Doug Lynch et al for the nest time. #
- Gregory Milken"time for a consumer reports for the education sector" #nest11 #
- Katzman "lots to learn from Asia" #nest11 #
- For profit needs and advocate in the non-profit space #nest #
- It takes innovation to create a context for innovation #nest11 #
- #nest11 Katzman "there should be an award for getting out of the way" of innovation. #
- Reminder to well funded edu-funders — go visit a classroom for a day; better yet try to be a teacher for a day #nest11 #
- Human development principles and theories can shape research questions related to educational quality #nest11 #
- Create an ongoing database with really granular data on interventions; do research against that database #nest11 #
- "we need a national system of measurment." #nest11 #
- #nest11 important to be open to different sources of research — a more level playing field of who drives data #
- If you can spell entrepreneur perhaps you can become one #next11 #
- #nest11 researchers don't like risks– we need a different type of research environment #
- At UPENNs #nest11 talking about innovation #
- Toys for the Father Who’s Not Too Grown Up – NYTimes.com http://t.co/OTgRkEA #