Active, Engaged, Meaningful and Interactive: Putting the “Education” Back in Educational Apps

It’s hard to believe that the iPad—now so ubiquitous—was only introduced in 2010. Already, a third of us own the device. By May of last year, over 775,000 apps had been developed for the iPad and over 20,000 of them were considered “educational.” No wonder we are overwhelmed. How could we possibly sift through all of those apps to know which might or might not be good for our kids? Luckily, a mountain of evidence from the newly amalgamated interdisciplinary field called “the science of learning” can give us some guideposts.