Lessons from AppCamp 2012

Dust or Magic AppCamp 2012 was the third in the post-iPad age. Fourteen bags of marshmallows generated 579 tweets, each captured by the data-loving Scott Traylor. For those of you who missed it make yourself a s’more and watch these videos.

THE CHILDREN’S APP SPACE IS MATURING, BUT STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO
• The “State of the App” panel at http://youtu.be/HzYaonRsd5E is a good place to start your tour of AppCamp. Don’t miss Robin Raskin’s comments about the cloud at 15:06 (See those sunburned cheeks? Robin managed to fit a Kayak ride in the Monterey kelp beds that morning).
• Carley Schuler makes research fun with her examination of some of the best selling children’s apps http://youtu.be/U2rsy6vU0ec.
• Chip Donohue gives the designers a crash course in DAP (Developmentally Appropriate Practice) http://youtu.be/ns0QhjkXjWk.
• Michel Kripalani gives an important rant at 12:38 in http://youtu.be/EWDUjXtj6Kg called “An Open Letter to Apple.” I think he raises some very good questions, such as “why are we still buying apps from a music store?”
• Another must-see event is at 29:30 in http://youtu.be/tn8HGorHR1g where Barbara Chamberlin turns her iPad into a nightclub act using Smule’s Magic Piano, as part of her talk “Grand Challenges of App Design.” Chamberlin, a former stand up comic and current professor of educational psychology, shows that she still has her timing.

WANT TO MAKE A MAGICAL CHILDREN’S APP? DON’T MAKE IT FOR CHILDREN
Theo Gray didn’t sit down one day and say “I’m going to make an award winning children’s app” when he partnered with Max Whitby to make The Elements. The reason children (and adults) continually launch this large and expensive app can be found at 37:42 in http://youtu.be/9bVsGYbDZQQ. Theo sets the tone for AppCamp when he says “Kids are really smart. They want to learn. If you give them something meaningful, they will become engaged.” A child thinks “Teach me, so that I can become a grown up…. that’s what a kid wants more than anything else in the world. To grow up and take their place in the world.” Another talk with special significance to educators is by stay-at-home dad Daren Carstens, who puts himself in a child’s shoes by subjecting himself to the process of learning something new and very hard: playing the cornet. Put in some earplugs and watch http://youtu.be/FUV-8vdaL_o (and keep your finger on your volume). For more analysis about this year’s AppCamp, see Chip Donohue’s “Camping With The App Makers” on page 5, or the AppCamp 3 archive page at http://bit.ly/LjE9dO.