Mightier is a set of video games that a child plays while wearing a heart rate sensor on the arm. It grew out of a research program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where psychologist Jason Kahn and psychiatrist Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich built a game called RAGE-Control for kids with serious anger problems. Their company, Neuromotion Labs, now sells it as Mightier.
Proloquo2Go is an AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) app for kids who can’t rely on speech. A child taps picture buttons or types on a keyboard, and the app says the message out loud in one of more than 100 natural-sounding voices, including real children’s voices. AssistiveWare, a Dutch company, launched it in 2009 as one of the first full AAC systems for the iPhone and iPad, and AssistiveWare says it is now the most popular AAC app in the world.
Habio is a habit tracker that focuses on the user’s approach to creating and keeping habits rather than just tracking them. When the user opens up the app, they begin by choosing one habit they would like to begin. Users can choose from pre-set options or create their own custom habit. They will then be asked to choose how often they want to track this habit and how many times within those days they would like to do it.
Shonen Jump is an app that allows the user to access and read manga comic books using their mobile devices and online. The user creates a Shonen Jump account and is then able to browse through lists of available manga that have been translated into English.
When the user selects a manga series that they want to try, they click on it and can read the free chapters or pay for a subscription to unlock the whole series. For parents, Shonen Jump has created a rating system for each manga based on what age levels each series is appropriate for. If the user wants to check a series out later, they can click on the heart icon to add it to their Favorites list. Manga can also be downloaded to read at a later date.
Animal Typing Lite is a typing exercise app that shows students their speed in the form of animals running across the screen. The animal you see on the screen reflects your speed in typing. Lessons start with the QWERTY home row and move into more complex lessons. Lessons can also be created and customized with the purchase of the full app.
Sushi Monster is a game created by the Scholastic educational team in which players must solve a series of addition and multiplication math problems. Numbers appear on sushi plates and are fed to a “sushi monster.” Players are given a series of products and sums. They must feed the correct sum or product of a combination of sushi plates (numbers) to solve the equation. Players are timed, and the faster they find the correct solution, the higher their score. However, more than quick mental math is required to succeed in the game.
Kidspiration is a child-friendly version of the popular Inspiration software. Kidspiration allows users to visually display and organize thoughts and ideas across various disciplines. This software appeals especially to visual and auditory learners, as users can hear and see words, numbers, and concepts. Kidspiration can be used to generate ideas and organize information for a story plot using the “Picture View” mode, visually display math problems using colored shapes in the “Math View”, or map out the relationships between terms or characters, using the outline feature in the “Writing View.” Kidspiration can engage learners with its talking feature, where users can hear a word simply by highlighting an icon or image. Because Kidspiration is a simplified version of Inspiration, its use is best implemented for children from pre-school to fifth grade.
