Application Evaluation

Name: Brittney Vargas NAME of App: Teach your Monster to Read

Cost: Free Target Age: 3-8
What is this app all about? The app’s main goal is to get students to learn to read. The app is split into three levels. The first is working on building
the students phonological awareness. The second level is working on sight words and the third seeks to put it all together. There is a story that
students will follow about a monster who is trying to help monsters on other planets by completing tasks. In addition to the story, there are individual
mini games that would allow parents/teachers to have students work on their areas for improvement on specific sounds and letters. I would not use
this app as a sole base for learning, but as a reward activity.

Characteristic Evidence Comments

Active: Minds ON!
● Purpose- active, attainable goal
● Flexible learning and movement
● Appropriate level of student control
and agency
● App is very clearly laid out
and would be easy to
explain to a peer.
● Student is able to choose
from two activities for each
task.
● The activities call for
students to apply their
knowledge which requires
them to be thinking about
they skills they are
learning.
● All goals set for the
students are attainable
because they are working
their way through the
material in sections.
● Relevant material
While this app is not the best for the Active characteristic,
there are still elements that are good about it. In this app the
goal is very clearly laid out. Students are to complete tasks to
perform more tasks. All of the material builds on itself. The
way that this is presented is there is a big goal for each level
with a series of smaller more attainable goals along the way to
the bigger goal. In the activities, students have an options
from which to choose from. There is a good amount of student
agency in this app, the story which they have chosen makes
the material more appealing and relatable to the student.
While the student is not an actual monster with a spaceship, it
is still relevant because it plays into their interest of helping
others and possibly monsters.

Engagement
● Allows the student to stay on task
● Coherence Principle: Avoiding as
many distractions as possible
● Meaningful feedback
● Progressive access to content (when
necessary)
● Motivation: Intrinsic and extrinsic
● Student is in control of
their monster.
● The student is in partial
control. The app is story
driven and only has one
path. While this is the case
I would say that there is a
certain amount of student
control.
● The access to content in
this app is progressive. A
student may not move
forward until he/she has
completed the activities
that are set up. Only after
each activity is completed
does the student move to
the next part.
● Directions are repeated
when the student does not
get the answer correct.
● Extrinsic motivation-
student wants to get to the
next level, earn stars and
fruit. With the stars, the
monster can be further
customized.
This app’s format does a great job of engaging students and
pulling them into the story that has been created. While there
is only one story path, in the end I think this is better because
students will not be overwhelmed with tasks. Only one task is
presented at a time which leaves little room for distractions.
All material is presented in a game format which keeps the
student's attention and motivates them to want to play the
game more and earn the reward of stars. The format of the app
makes it so that a student must complete all the activities
before moving onto the next section. This ensures that the
student has a knowledge base to build on. An area for
improvement for this app would be improving the quality of
feedback given to the student. If a student does not follow a
directive or gets a question wrong the only form of feedback
is sound for the incorrect answer and repetition of the
directions. It would be better when the student is in the
learning phase, the app asked a question. For example, if the
tasks is to place all the ducks in the “sh” lake and the student
places it in the “ng” lake the app could ask the student if “oo”
sounds like “sh” in addition to the sound of an incorrect
action.

Meaningful Learning
● Constructivism: Build on pre-
existing knowledge (making
connections)
● Higher order thinking skills
● Relevant material
● Putting rote learning in context
Social Interaction
● Responsivity
● Multiple users engaged in mediated
interactions
● Support development of parasocial
relations with on-screen characters
● There are very limited
distractions, no adds, and
only one task is available at
a time.
● Formatting encourages the
student to use their prior
knowledge
● The app pushes students to
apply what they have
learned in the games that
they play after the
“lessons.”
● Rote learning is put in
context, first a learning
activity, then after the skill
has been worked with, then
it is thrown in other
activities for further work.
● Students are asked to
interact with on screen
characters.
● Multiple profiles are
available.
● Students prompted to speak
to characters.
This app does a good job of building on material taught
because of the way it is set up. While the app does build on
itself, Students are not asked to go as far as I would like on
the higher order thinking skills. I would call it lower-mid level
thinking skills. They are asked to apply knowledge, but are
not creating, evaluate or analyze. An aspect that I found
interesting was the role of rote learning in this app, it is a
small one, that is put in context. Rote learning can be very
boring, this app made it so that it can have value and still be
fun for students to exercise their knowledge.
This app does not allow for multiple users at the same time
and does not allow for any sort of collaboration. There are a
lot of prompts to follow and tasks to complete, so there is a
certain level of responsivity in the app for the student to
interact with and respond to. Within the app there can be
multiple profiles, but there can only be one used at a time.
Students are often prompted to read a sentence to their
monsters to give them directions and to talk and interact with
onscreen characters. That is the extent of the interaction for
 this app.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J., Golinkoff, R., Gray, J., Robb, M., & Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting education in “educational “ apps: Lessons from the
science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3-34.