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Designing and creating an educational app rubric for preschool teachers

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Abstract

International studies indicate that the use of smart mobile devices and their accompanying educational applications (apps) can revolutionize young children’s learning experiences. Although there is a vast array of educational apps for preschoolers, they are not actually educational in their majority. In this context, it is important for preschool teachers to be able to assess each app for its effectiveness in educational practice. To evaluate educational mobile apps, this paper presents a rubric (abbreviated as REVEAC) in four areas: contents, design, functionality, and technical quality, each having multiple aspects. In this paper, we discuss the known problems in using educational apps and we present a review of relevant literature, as well as the process of formulating REVEAC. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of REVEAC limitations and future work.

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Notes

  1. In this paper the term preschool education is used to refer to the first formal pre-primary educational stage for children 4 to 6 years of age.

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  1. Department of Preschool Education, Faculty of Education, University of Crete, Crete, Greece

    Stamatios Papadakis, Michail Kalogiannakis & Nicholas Zaranis

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  1. Stamatios Papadakis
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  2. Michail Kalogiannakis
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Correspondence to Stamatios Papadakis.

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Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M. & Zaranis, N. Designing and creating an educational app rubric for preschool teachers. Educ Inf Technol 22, 3147–3165 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-017-9579-0

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