App

App

Roger Matthews, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Definitions and background

The word app, the accepted abbreviation for the term application, refers to a computer application that is smaller in size which can be quickly downloaded and installed on mobile devices without having to be rebooted (Cherner & Lee, 2014). According to Cherner & Lee (2014) the current leaders in providing apps for individual use are the App Store by Apple and Google Play (formerly the Android Market) for Android both of which were founded in 2008. These services, as of October 2013, offer over six hundred thousand free apps and nearly four hundred thousand paid apps for download (Cherner & Lee, 2014). There are many ways of categorizing apps across services and sites and categories can range from general functionality, free vs paid, specific populations, specific devices, specific purposes and many more (Douglas et al., 2012). As of January 2013 the category ‘education’ represented the second most number of total app downloads thus far (Kucirkova et al., 2014). Cheong et al. (2012) observed that with the wide scale availability of mobile devices today; they are an “obvious choice of technology with which to engage students” (p. 98).

Affordances

A key affordance offered by apps is mobility (Yu-Chang and Yu-Hui, 2013). These mobile apps often allow the user to access data both on and off line and they are designed to work best on smaller screens, thereby increasing their functionality and appeal for educators and learners (Jonas-Dwyer et al. 2012). Sharpe (2012) postulated whether it is accessibility itself that is greatest app whereby it makes “learning opportunities more accessible” (p. 219). Mobile apps are a part of students’ daily lives meaning their use in the classroom would more accurately reflect students’ real world use of technology, thereby enhancing the adoption and use of apps for learning (Cheong et al., 2012).

Apps provide supports to enhance learning (Douglas et al., 2012). They are often viewed by learners as more of a game and as such a ‘gamification’ of education occurs, adding a level of intrinsic reward and a more personal learning experience (Israel et al., 2013). The intrinsic sense of accomplishment is reaffirmed by Kucirkova et al. (2014) when they discovered “the more an app supports easily accessible open-ended content accomplishments, the more likely it is that the activity will have positive educational impact” (p. 183). Apps offer ways for teachers to differentiate instruction and/or to provide immediate feedback during teaching (Walker, 2011). Well-designed educational apps include multi-modal input and output for students to learn via auditory, visual and tactile means (Green et al., 2014). They allow students to automatically record lectures and presentations to help them grow as both learners and presenters (Canessa et al., 2014). Function-based apps give students the opportunity to transform learned content into a more usable form (Cherner & Lee, 2014). Mobile, collaborative apps promote higher order thinking skills (Cheong et al., 2012). Individuals with disabilities can learn to use apps to enhance their learning of safety skills such as identifying whether or not there are ingredients in products which may trigger a serious allergic reaction (McMahon et al., 2013). The increasing growth in app availability means people with disabilities also benefit from the use of apps in both education and everyday life (Douglas et al., 2012). Douglas et al. (2012) found that the use of apps allow people with intellectual and related developmental difficulties to better communicate, learn, work and live in today’s society.

There are several databases available for educators or learners to search for an app that suits your own instructional or learning needs (Cherner & Lee, 2014). If, however, finding an app to meet a specific need proves difficult you can build your own using programs such as App Inventor (Hsu et al., 2012) and Google App Engine (Yu-Chang and Yu-Hui, 2013). These tools give educators a way to “leverage the power of mobile computing and design their own apps to serve their needs” (Hsu et al., 2012, p. E4).