As teachers close out the 2015-2016 school year, no doubt they will be planning for 2016-2017 very soon. With digital literacy as a pillar for 21st century learning, using apps for educational purposes may continue to increase in popularity. How do we know which apps have curriculum alignment? The answer isn’t always obvious, but these developers have taken steps to explain how curriculum standards are integrated into their app’s content.
Let’s take a look at how these alignments are presented in case more developers are curious about mapping their app’s academic content to standards frameworks.
Bel Math Apps is a husband-wife development team who specialize in building math quizzes for elementary and middle school. They have outlined connections between each app and its associated common core alignment in this table:
Todo Math’s early learning curriculum and daily math practice supports common core alignment as shown by a table on their curriculum page. Each Todo Math Mission has an educational purpose that is also associated with academic standards.
Appp Media’s educational apps for young kids come with a Teacher’s Manual to illustrate in detail how apps can be used in learning settings. This manual is a downloadable PDF from their website and includes the curriculum standard behind several game objectives.
L’escapadou, a family-run design studio focused on educational apps for kids, posts detailed app descriptions on their website which include common core standards for each app.
Splash Math’s learning program has a web page dedicated to common core alignment, and dynamically segments their apps by grade, concept and topic to drill down to specific common core objectives.
Do you know teachers who consider using apps in the classroom based on curriculum alignment? Do you have a suggestion for how developers should display or validate their curriculum mapping? Feel free to discuss in comments!
Photo credit Flickr [Brad Flickinger]