Balefire Reviews Educational Apps

December 4, 2013

Balfire has produced a web site to help parents and educators make informed decisions when considering the purchase of educational apps. The site strives to be a non-biased and objective source of evidence based information that offers reviews of educational apps that can be searched by subject (Math, Science, English/language arts) as well as by the target age of the app developers (0-3 through 19 up). This can be a useful tool for both the parent and the educator who are confronted with a confusing array of apps purporting to be effective uses of technology in teaching. The reviews examine each program against meeting criteria for effective instructional design.

Criteria include:

  • Feedback for Correct Answers
  • Error Feedback
  • Adapting Difficulty
  • Error Remediation
  • Mastery-Based Instruction
  • Frequent, Meaningful Learner Interaction
  • Clearly-Stated Learning Objective