The rise in popularity of apps is being driven by our youngest generation, who were born from 1996 onwards - the iGen/Generation Z or the "curation generation". Effective educational engagement for them rests on appealing to their need for continuous hyper-connectivity, as the older wave tend to live much of their lives online, socialising with their friends via messaging applications such as Snapchat and Vine. Recent research by the US Center for Generational Kinetics suggests that the iGen process information in a radically different way to previous generations. As multi-device and multi-screen users who consume vast quantities of media-rich resources across multiple digital platforms, they are most engaged by mobile, personalised and interactive content that is highly social, brand-directed, on-demand and ideally accessible from their smartphones.
The iGen Influence on App Demand
According to one of the Generational Kinetics iGen studies, the fact that 25% of 13- to17-year-olds deleted their Facebook accounts in 2015 indicates the increasing desire of this new generation to move away from social media towards apps, since they are viewed as being more instantaneous, visually appealing and immersive in active storytelling and participatory learning. Statista estimates that there has been an explosion in the number of apps in the last five years, with 1.6 million apps now available in the Google Play Store and 1.5 million in the Apple App Store. The most popular category for app sales is games (22.21%), followed by business (10.41%) and education (9.59%). The gamification of learning, as evidenced by this new demand for engaging apps for students, is therefore a prime future market of untapped potential, particularly for encouraging participation in the all-important STEM subjects.
App Advantages
The success of the digital gaming model underpinning apps is reliant on the three core instructional principles of student engagement and motivation, challenge and accomplishment to encourage children's cognitive and affective development. The interactive features create meaningful, learner-centred simulations that promote curiosity, persistence and performance, hypothesis development and testing. Failure is met with constructive feedback in the form of rich interactive features, which helps to build an academic mindset by instilling the idea that independent thought and effort can eventually lead to achievement.
Maths Apps Make a Difference Across the World
Math learning apps are being used in many innovative ways to accelerate maths learning across the world. One report by the British Council outlines how schoolchildren in Malawi have made dramatic educational progress thanks to the use of cool math apps that are changing the long-term socio-economic outlook for underprivileged students in one of the poorest countries in the world. The original 2014 study by Dr Nicola Pitchford, who is a psychologist based at the University of Nottingham, found that Malawian children using the math learning apps on solar-powered devices vastly increased their knowledge of maths within eight weeks. Since then, the app has been transferred to the UK to help underperforming British schoolchildren to enhance their mathematical capabilities. These developments therefore clearly illustrate the high value currently being placed on games-based learning through apps by today's progressive education professionals.
Smith
