Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Every day there are new apps for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad/iTouch, smartphones, etc.), with more and more of them aimed at kids of all ages, including the very youngest.

But are they educational, and are kids actually learning from them. According to Learning: Is there an app for that?, a new national survey of parents and observation of K3-7 learning and interacting with mobile media, released yesterday by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop ( http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/Reports.html ), in collaboration with PBS Kids Raising Readers and Hotspex, most parents let their young kids use their mobile devices even though they don't think their kids are learning anything beneficial.

The study also found that kids can and are learning things (including literacy skills) through age appropriate educational apps, and also offers some guidance for developers to produce better educational apps and make parents aware of their benefits.

The report refers to the 'pass-back effect' - which is when a parent hands a mobile device to a kid to occupy them, say in car, restaurant or grocery cart, and the kid plays with it until the parent takes it back.

A 2009 content analysis conducted by The Cooney Center showed that 60% of the 25 top-selling paid applications in the education section of the iTunes App Store target toddlers and preschoolers. In addition, a Kaiser Family Foundation study noted that kids spend an average of about one hour per day using mobile devices. Some findings from Learning: Is there an app for that? include:

The mobile media pass-back effect - Two-thirds of K4-7 have used an iPhone or iPod touch and 85% have used one owned by a parent. Kids most often use the devices when they are passed-back by a parent while in a car.

Evidence that kids can learn from apps - Mobile apps based on PBS Kids programs Martha Speaks and Super Why! were independently evaluated with 90 K3-7 who played with them for 2 weeks. Kids made gains in vocabulary comprehension, letter-identification and rhyming after use of the apps. Vocabulary improved as much as 31% for kids who played with the Martha Speaks Dog Party App.

Young kids are surprisingly adept at using smart mobile devices - Nearly all of the kids observed in the studies could master operations, even after initial difficulty.

Create apps that sustain interest - Children use apps for short periods of time and interest quickly diminishes. Developers should design activities that incorporate specific educational goals and incentives to hold their interest.

Use mobile devices as supplemental tools - App content can be developed around curriculum goals in literacy, math and science as well as life skills to supplement and extend school-based learning.

Inform parents - App developers' claims of educational impact are largely unsubstantiated and should be based on specific evidence. Parents need more information on how mobile devices can and should be used as learning tools.