While children are forced to stay home until May, parents continue to struggle to find extracurricular or tutoring activities to do at home.
Using smartphone applications, for example, has become a daily exercise, especially when your children are struggling with digital literacy or can’t concentrate in front of one of their parents who has been turned into a budding black hussar of the Republic. Google Play now helps you better select the contents.
Everybody knows parents who struggle to do home schooling. Testimonials flourish on social networks or on Youtube. Despite the specificity of each family, all parents agree that it is difficult to dig into all the content aimed at children.
To help them in their choice, Google has created a new “Kids” tab on Google Play filled with “teacher-approved” applications.
This project was in the boxes of the American giant, but the current pandemic has accelerated the online availability of these lists, which are meant to be both enriching and entertaining.
As Google announces on its blog, this section is still under development and some of children’s favourite applications are still missing.
Google promises to address this issue as soon as possible in light of the current situation.
This system has been established according to specific criteria. Google relied on a team of academic experts and educators from across the United States, including senior children’s content consultants Joe Blatt (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Dr. Sandra Calvert (Georgetown University).
The team evaluated the applications against quality standards to validate whether or not the content merited the “teacher-approved” badge.
According to these experts, the applications had to meet a set of specifications answering several questions such as:
Does the application arouse curiosity? Does it help the child to learn? Is it entertaining? Applications are also evaluated on several factors such as age appropriateness, quality of experience, enrichment and fun.
Whenever parents search the Play Store, they will be able to search for the “Teacher approved” badge to verify that the applications have been certified by teachers.
If you are a Google Play Pass subscriber, a wide selection of “teacher approved” content will be available in the “Apps and games for kids” section.
All this has been made possible by the close collaboration that already existed between American teachers and the American giant.
The new “Kids” tab with “teacher-approved” applications will be launched in the US on Google Play in the coming days.
Unfortunately, it will be a few months before this device arrives in France. But the situation could speed up in view of the situation.
Moreover, Google is very open to comments from parents and is very keen to extend this support to parents internationally.
