Periodic Table App Review Discussion
The Periodic Table app offers reference information about each element. The app offers audio clips to help users learn pronunciations of the names of the elements. The app also includes a quiz mode.
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melissaayers
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Doug Connery 8:01 pm on October 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Overview of the App – Periodic Table
• App Title: Periodic Table
• App Publisher/Developer: Socratica
• Version: ?
• Link to App Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.socratica.mobile.chemistry#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiY29tLnNvY3JhdGljYS5tb2JpbGUuY2hlbWlzdHJ5Il0.
Curriculum Compliance:
Unknown. I am not a science teacher but I had fun with this app as it brought me back to some basic chemistry courses I took in High School and College many years ago. It presents the periodic table backed with all the data for each element, including a voice pronunciation.
Operational:
Is navigation easy? Yes but it would be better if there was a link from an element in the table to the data
Is on-screen help and/or tutorial available? No
Does it have multiple ability levels? No
How does it respond to errors? Incorrect spelling in the quiz is okay as it gives the correct answers and allows you to proceed. The lookup is frustrating as a spelling error leaves you hanging with no suggestions.
Are there audio/video options with controls? The audio clips for the pronunciations are great but not always correct. The videos are great as they give engaging definitions to terms – very suitable for high school/college level
Can selected material be tagged, copied, pasted, saved, and printed? Not sure
Does it keep a history of the user’s work over a period of time? Not sure
What support materials are included? Has links to Wikipedia for each element
Pedagogy:
Does the material accommodate diverse ways in which students learn? Yes, view the table, lookup each element, a learn function that randomly selects and displays an elements attributes, a quiz function and definition videos
Is it developmentally and age appropriate? Yes for HS/College
Does it provide an opportunity to increase students’ understanding? Yes
Does it provide an opportunity for engagement and interaction? Yes with the sounds, videos, quizzes and lookup functions
Does it provide feedback and assessment? Yes through the quiz function
Doug.
manny 11:38 am on October 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Doug for that thorough analysis of this app. I teach Science 10 and the Chemistry unit takes up approximately 25% of the course. In the past, I used a paper printout of the periodic table that students would reference. I found that during my classes, the majority of help time was spent on assisting students finding the element in question. I must have wasted hundreds of instructional minutes answering questions such as “I can’t find Lead?” Luckily I have a class set of ipads and downloaded the interactive periodic table of elements from iTunes. This app has a landscape and portrait mode that switches depending on how the students orient the iPad. The elements are presented in the table and also alphabetically. They are linked to videos and images that allows the students to visualize what they look like. I have noticed that the interest level has skyrocketed and students are quite often exploring more than they are required to and sharing their findings with each other. The interactiveness of such apps opens up a whole new realm and adds fun to topics such as Chemistry that have traditionally been detested. I have left the link below, worth checking out…
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/interactive-periodic-table/id384319425?mt=8
Lisa Nevoral 2:39 pm on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I did post this response already in another area, but then noticed the Periodic Table App Review Discussion.
Here is my review on the Periodic Table App:
At first I thought this app was too simplistic, but then I thought about what it supposed to do. It is to teach it’s users about the periodic table. There were some great features such as a quiz on naming elements, abbreviations of elements, and atomic #s. As well, there was a description of each element as well as a sound byte of each element name. There was a video chemistry section that explained more information than what would be found on the periodic table. What I would like to see as a link or add on that helps learners in naming compounds and formulas. Maybe I should make an app for that…
Lisa