When it comes to educational apps, fun is subjective. What’s fun for some, might be an utter bore for others. “Learning” very seldom summons up “fun” in the minds of people, especially young children. Developers since the early 90s have been working hard to craft learning programmes and applications that not only deliver educational material but are also fun to use.
Some are more successful than others.
As gamification is bandied about in 2022, very seldom are educational apps actually games, apart from the use of some surface-level achievements and feedback loops. Not to say an educational app has to be a “game” to be fun. Sometimes clever design is all you need to learn while being entertained.
The following are five educational apps we found more entertaining to learn from. And they’re completely free:
Prodigy
Prodigy is a mobile game that harkens back to the JRPGs of old. Often times it looks like something out of RPG Maker, but it rather ingenuously uses its combat system to sneakily teach you math.
You see after you create your own wizard, every spell you cast to defeat your enemy will cost you Magic Points, but they run out. During a battle (very cartoonish violence), you will have to answer math questions to refill your Magic Points.
It uses this formula and other RPG elements to sneakily teach you math, or English, up to Grade 8. You can also team up with your friends by playing on the same server. Prodigy is often recommended by other publications and websites as a fun educational game that will only require an email address from you.
Available for Android devices here and iPhone devices here.
Kahoot!
A favourite among teachers looking for unique ways to create class participation. We’ve seen this app used even in university classrooms.
Kahoot! is basically a quiz creator, but the application has other pre-made quizzes for user perusal. Many of these are locked behind premium subscriptions and other can be bought, but there are free ones available.
For example, we played one in which we learned about Norwegian winter words, (the Norwegian word for snow is “snø”). The quizzes are easy to complete and when you choose incorrect answers, you get a second chance to answer these questions later in the quiz.
The real power of Kahoot! comes with creating your own quizzes for colleagues or students, and it can be a good way to group study and not be bored out of your minds.
Available for Android devices here and iPhone devices here.
Duolingo
As educational apps go, this is the world’s most popular language-learning platform, and for a reason. Duolingo is a high-quality educational platform that uses a series of questions to try and teach you languages.
You don’t even need an account to get started, just download the app and choose which language you want to start learning. All the usual customers are here – French, German, Spanish, and even isiZulu has been added.
You will get a quick language test to see at what level you should start and then you can begin your first lesson. We started isiZulu at the very basic level and honestly, it was hard to put it down and keep writing this article.
We can’t recommend it enough, especially as research shows its lessons do actually work. Duolingo is also expanding to other subjects and launched a math learning app in October.
Available for Android devices here and iPhone devices here.
Scratch JR
Every parent in the 2020s seemingly wants their children to learn how to code and do it fast. However, as languages have become more and more simplified and easy to understand (we’re looking at you, Python), many continue to be out of the reach of young children.
There have been a few new educational apps seeking to remedy this.
This includes ScratchJr – a way for children ages three up to seven to learn the basics of coding. They do this through a system that doesn’t even look like coding. ScratchJr will have your little ones create their own animations through a series of commands that were actually quite complex for us. We recommend watching a how-to.
This app is very often recommended by other publications and YouTubers have made videos about pushing the basic-looking coding system to its utter limits. Seems like a lot of fun and the system itself seems like it is subtlely powerful.
Available for Android devices here and iPhone devices here.
Google Arts & Culture
Google’s Arts & Culture platform uses Google Maps images and information to teach about culture, art and history. This platform was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, where most people were stuck at home and Google wanted to get everyone to return to the world’s museums, virtually.
On the free app, users can explore history to their heart’s content through tabs and slides of paintings, museums and fully-written multimedia articles. We enjoyed the article the platform has on the history of European food paintings. Eccentric and informative, with high-definition images of ancient art.
It also uses Google Street View to showcase what the inside of world-famous museum exhibitions look like, like the one hosting the bust of Queen Nefertiti.
Google Arts & Culture is free, it’s fast and it’s updated very often. If you’re hankering for some museum time but just can’t get out right now. Check this app out instead.
Available for Android devices here and iPhone devices here.
[Image – CC 0 Katerina Holmes on Pexels]
