App Review: MarcoPolo Ocean

MARCOPOLO OCEAN is an engaging learning app for budding young scientists.

Designed for preschool and early primary grades, the app provides an immersive environment for young children to explore ocean habitats and creatures.

Choosing an item from the Puzzle icon menu introduces a learning activity such as building a boat or creating an underwater habitat for octopi. Oral directions are provided along with visual assistance for young users. Each of the six activities reinforces vocabulary and ocean concepts.

Choosing an item from the Fish icon menu allows uses to add elements such as divers and sea creatures to the ocean and explore life under the sea.

Librarians will find this app to be a highly visual way to introduce the ocean to young learners. Create a display that includes books about ocean creatures found in the app. The app would be particularly useful for children with special needs.

Part of the Discovery Series, related apps include Arctic and Weather.

To learn more about MarcoPolo, go to http://gomarcopolo.com/

To download the app, go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marcopolo-ocean/id797157312

Technology Review: Sesame Street

The SESAME STREET website, apps, and ebooks contain endless learning resources for preschool and primary children.

The website contains sections focusing on games, videos, art, and muppets. The games section provides age-appropriate games for young children including life skills such as a getting dresses and academic games such as letters and numbers. The videos section features short 2-3 minute videos on a variety of topics. Again, the interface is easy enough for small children to use. The Art Maker section provides easy-to-use interactive tools for creating everything from a cookie or pizza to a Jack-O-Lantern. The Muppets section allows users to explore resources related to their favorite character including games, videos, and art projects. Playlists are available based on specific topics and ages.

The bookstore area contains access to eBooks, audio eBooks, animated eBooks, and interactive eBooks. A subscription is required to access most of these books.

Dozens of apps are available including game apps, story apps, and ebooks. Educational bundles are available for sets of apps. Many of the apps contain the same resources found online.

Librarians will find a wealth of resources for preschool and primary children. Keep in mind that while the general website is free, access to the ebook website and many of the apps requires a license.

To visit the website, go to http://www.sesamestreet.org/.

To visit the ebook area, go to http://ebooks.sesamestreet.org/.

To download apps, go to https://itunes.apple.com/…/develo…/sesame-street/id339077104.

App Review: Storm & Skye

STORM & SKYE AND THE SECRET OF THE CAR WASH from Digimoo Studios is the first episode in a beautifully illustrated, animated, and audio narrated storybook app.

In this exciting and engaging fantasy adventure, Storm’s imagination goes wild during a drive through the car wash. Later, he joins forces with his young friend Skye to explore the magical world of knights and dragons inside this mysterious car wash.

Designed for children ages five and over, the animated storybook app provides an engaging visual and auditory experience. However because no text is provided, it’s not designed as a text-based reading experience.

The charming narration is accompanied by pleasant music making it perfect for the young children. Each chapter is around 5 minutes for a total of about 45 minutes of entertainment. Users can read straight through the storybook app or jump to one of the nine chapters. In addition to the animated story, a few interactive animations are built into the story allowing young readers to play with story elements. A “help button” reviews the options for users.

Librarians seeking an amazing visual and auditory experience for preschool and primary grade students will want to add this app to their app collection. The short, focused chapters would work well for listening comprehension activities.

Readers will be begging for the next episode in this high-quality animated storybook series.

To learn more, go to the Digimoo Studios website at http://www.digimoostudios.com/.