The utilization of apps in mobile devices offers autism professionals a complementary medium with which to strengthen deficient skills. Through a system of previously validated indicators, we have ...thoroughly assessed 155 apps that are available on the Play Store. To select the apps aimed at people with autism, we used the search term “autism” in English and in Spanish. The chosen apps were then assessed and given a score for their design, content and pedagogic dimension. The assessment concluded by establishing a ranking of the apps. Only 14 apps obtained scores notably higher than the rest.
•Digital resources are a useful option in the therapy of people with autism.•So far, there has been no rigorous analysis of apps targeting people with autism.•155 apps for people with autism have been evaluated.•The evaluation focused on the design, content and pedagogical dimension of each app.•Only 14 apps obtained scores notably higher than the rest.
Modern cities produce areas of poverty, despite their overall wealth. These pockets of living can exacerbate societal problems, especially because the opposite end of the societal spectrum is often ...close by. This paper examines an educational initiative in one such district, called Claymore, in the suburbs of outer Sydney. The project deployed a mobile youth van equipped with high-tech educational hardware and software, and encouraged local youth to take advantage of the van, to further high-tech skills acquisition. This paper offers a Deleuze/Guattari (1988) cartographic approach to mapping the effects of the van extracted from their opus maxima, 1000 Plateaus. This approach is a mode of social topology that deepens the type of discourse analysis that one may take from Foucault and its uses in educational research (e.g., Ball, 2012). The social cartography that one might derive from Deleuze/Guattari involves producing a ‘plane of immanence’ and assemblages about the phenomena under scrutiny, in the case of this article, the mobile van initiative in Claymore. This does not mean that hierarchies are diminished, but that they are reset for the purposes of analysis, so that their complex relationships are realized and understood. This paper looks to describe and analyse what is immanent to the situation in Claymore, and what effects the mobile van might have given this state of affairs.
This article investigated possible solutions to disengagement from schools by ethnic minority learners in Botswana. Disengagement is a concern for educationists and researchers. The study used ...qualitative approach to investigate the problem. The reason for disengagement include cultural misfit. The theory of social integration was used to understand the problem under study. The findings indicated that there must be consultation with farm owners and they use local languages for teaching. The article concludes that there is a need to liaise with stakeholders to review certain practices to encourage retainment in schools such as mobile schools and the use of indigenous languages.
Due to the emergence of new forms of preschools and parents’ increased freedom of choice regarding early childhood education, more research on parental preschool preferences is needed. Although ...preschool offers a seedbed for the development of knowledge and competencies, this development matures through interaction with parents. Therefore, parental expectations and wishes are very likely to affect children’s learning. The mobile preschool is a new form of educational practice in Sweden where children travel by bus to different places for play and learning. This form of preschool can potentially lay a foundation for social and ecological sustainability because children learn to meet diverse people, explore different places, and spend time in nature. We interviewed 15 parents of children in a mobile preschool, most from a middle-class background. The main aim was to explore how these parents explain their choice of this type of preschool. Another aim was to identify desirable competencies that the parents think their children will achieve through the mobile preschool. Six themes related to preschool choice were identified; of these themes, “being out in nature” and “enlarging the children’s reality” were the most prominent. Two clusters of competencies were distinguished: care- and cooperation-oriented competencies, and freedom- and independence-oriented competencies. After analyzing these results in relation to two current educational discourses—education for sustainable development and entrepreneurship in a neoliberal society—we show how parents participate in reproducing these discourses. These findings add novel and important knowledge to the field of early childhood educational practices concerning parental choice and preferences.
Like many countries, Australia has persistent rates of school exclusion, juvenile offending and recidivism. In response, there has been a growth of 'alternative education' provision - interventions ...that support young people to engage with learning opportunities outside the conventional education system. While alternative education programs educate more than 70,000 students each year across Australia, evidence of their effectiveness is lacking. There is a need to expand understandings of how alternative education provision works in practice, and what models best fit the complex needs of different groups of young people. This paper reports on Out Teach Mobile Education - an individualised alternative education program run by Save the Children, Tasmania. This unique program, operating out of a van, aims to engage young people, who have been involved with the criminal justice system, in further education and employment opportunities. In the paper, the young people involved identify how and why they believe the program works. The young people's perspectives provide valuable understandings of how 'meaningful education' in one specific program looks to the individuals involved. The article concludes by arguing that an authentic assessment of alternative education programs must include the voices of the young people whose lives these programs are aimed at improving.
Using video-ethnographic data from a 'try-on day' in a bus-based mobile preschool, we discuss how children with different levels of experience collaborate with one another and with pedagogues to ...socialize newcomers into an ongoing community. Analyses show how pedagogues create moments of collective orientation and, besides through verbal instructions, invite newcomers to participate in core activities with older children. The novices engage in the priming event by intent participation, while the older children assume, and are assigned, the role of more experienced participants - 'old-timers'. In this collective socialization, old-timers, children, and pedagogues strive to create a smooth transition for novices, particularly by stressing the specificity of participating in a preschool that is mobile and located in a bus. The results illustrate how becoming a mobile preschool child entails understanding and mastering competences such as safely riding the bus, eating meals in the bus, and walking in line in diverse spaces.
It is crucial for families and professionals to promote basic instrumental skills in children with autism, as these skills can help with comprehensive growth and development, and are a starting point ...in acquiring the essential tools needed for one to live an independent and successful life. These skills include oral language, reading, writing, and mathematics. Therefore, given that ICT and mobile applications (apps) are effective tools that offer suitable content, and are designed exclusively for people with this disorder, working on these skills with apps is an interesting option that is worthy of our attention. We analyzed 88 apps that focused on these skills, through a duly validated system of indicators, calculating frequencies, percentages, measures of central tendency and dispersion, and non-parametric contrast statistics. The app search was carried out in the Google Play Store, with the keyword “autism”, in English and in Spanish. Most of the apps focused on aspects linked to oral language and reading, but few were aimed at reading and mathematics. In addition to the apps’ lack of specialization in the last two skills, the vast majority did not specify the age group for which their content was intended.
Designing a mobile makerspace, the MakerBus, originated from our goal of bringing maker education to all students in K-12, thus empowering students to believe they could create things and make social ...changes. This design case was guided by human-centered design principles and rapid prototyping instructional design model. In this paper, we elaborated on the process of designing the MakerBus, highlight major design decisions.
After a successful pilot project using busuu, we tested the chosen language
learning application’s effectiveness with learners of four languages (German, English, Spanish, Italian) (n=94) using pre ...and post language tests. According to the language test results, the experimental group increased their performance (+2.2%) while the control group’s performance decreased (-3.1%) and the difference in post-measurement was statistically significant (p=.013). Shortly after this, we tested Lifeline, a text-based interactive sci-fi story,
which combines reading with a game. The students’ feedbacks show that they found the app
very motivating and exciting. Further research will focus on the effectiveness of Lifeline in
language learning.
Tras un exitoso proyecto piloto usando busuu, se ha evaluado la efectividad de esta aplicación para el aprendizaje de idiomas con estudiantes de 4 lenguas (alemán, inglés, español e italiano) (n=94) usando pruebas previas y posteriores de sus conocimientos
al respecto. Los resultados de estas pruebas muestran que el grupo experimental aumentó
su rendimiento (+2,2%), mientras que el propio del grupo de control decreció (-3,1%) y su
diferencia tras la segunda prueba de evaluación es estadísticamente significativa (p=0,013).
Inmediatamente después, se hizo un nuevo experimento con Lifeline, una historia de ciencia ficción interactiva basada en la escritura de textos, que combina lectura y juego. Los estudiantes, a la vista de sus comentarios de evaluación de la experiencia, encontraron esta
aplicación para móviles muy motivadora y excitante, por lo que futuras investigaciones se
centrarán en la efectividad de Lifeline en el aprendizaje de lenguas.
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