YogiPlay Debuts “YogiMeter,” An Educator-Based Rating System For Children’s Learning Apps →
This is a fascinating startup. I’m hoping it takes off over time.
While there are a few startups working to rank and review mobile apps, like KinderTown, for instance (which also vets apps with educators), Dr. Gray says that he believes the YogiMeter system uses a more developmental approach with techniques common to those familiar in child development and education. “The others are not as rigorous, research-based, structured and consistent,” he says describing YogiMeter’s competition.
The system he developed ranks and analyzes apps in two main areas - engagement and educational quality. For determining an app’s engagement, it looks at things like user interactions, user experience, intrinsically motivated engagement, extrinsically motivated engagement and socially motivated engagement. And to analyze the app’s ability to teach, it looks at whether the app will actually engage the child in learning, as it proposes to do, and whether that learning is deep, authentic, personalized, differentiated, and whether or not parents can track the child’s progress throughout.
