Artgig Studio has been in the ed-tech space for a while. The key team first met while working together for a division of Houghton Mifflin Interactive, developing and producing award winning educational tools and games for schools and children. Since 2002 they have been working in the educational technology and e-learning space, though like many development teams their portfolio suggests they've taken on other jobs developing a suite of tools – and not just mobile.
This background sees Matthew Kicinski and his team well-placed to explore and experiment in the education space. They do this through Artgig Apps. I value what they are doing because from Shake-a-Phrase through to their latest Marble Math educational apps I think we are seeing an evolution. Here is a development team keen to learn, to adapt and try to work out what works best from listening to and observing others. This is crucial for anyone developing in the education space – we have enough simulations of real life, and enough copycats on mobile devices. It is time to explore and branch out. Artgig might not yet be producing apps that are groundbreaking (though Marble Math is a clever bringing-together of math, marble runs, and kinesthetic learning) but if they keep progressing in the way they have ... then they will.
Artgig Apps' progression of educational apps on iOS devices includes the award-winning early learning app Alien Buddies, the mental math and strategy apps Marble Math and Marble Math Junior, the popular learn-as-you-laugh language arts app Shake-a-Phrase, and a children's book app called Being Benny. You can find links to all of them from the Artgig Apps website.
Here at GeekDad, we had the chance to probe a little deeper to understand the motivations and directions of Artgig Apps. The responses are worth reading, and help any parents engaging a child with their mobile device to think about what they learn in that space.
GeekDad: What is Artgig Studio trying to achieve in the educational app space?
Matthew Kicinski (Artgig): Kids are already tech proficient and knowledgeable. Outside the classroom they are very familiar with intuitive and interactive computer/mobile tools and apps. We'd like to help update the methods and paradigms for how kids learn in school. There's no reason the games they like to play outside of school, and the digital communities they participate in can't also be found in the classroom.
GeekDad: What was the inspiration behind developing game-based maths apps?
Kicinski: Maths can be fun for some kids, but daunting for a lot more. The math apps we develop are structured so that kids or parent/teachers can customize the game to suit the specific learner, to either focus on one challenging concept, or allow simple practice and drill gameplay. Kids don't feel out of their depth, and can increase the challenge as they're ready. Also, the math (or any kind of learning) is almost a subtext to the fun of the game, which encourages kids to play more.
GeekDad: What have you found is valuable to students learning in using your apps?
Kicinski: In math apps in particular, kids pretty quickly figure out that if they don't read the question and understand the problem, no amount of running around and collecting prizes will help them win the game. They learn to study the problem, then plan a strategy to solve it. That might be the single most important element of Marble Math.
GeekDad: Your apps engage learners to think through problems in their head, while using their hands. This is obviously to engage kinesthetic learners who learn through doing? Can you tell us more about this approach? You used the need to physically engage with the device through Shake-a-Phrase as well.
Kicinski: Being able to pick up something physically is a vital learning tool at any age. That's why we learn to count with blocks and beads rather than written symbols. Even if what you're doing physically doesn't solve the task, it opens the door for a more holistic approach to thinking things through. Your whole body is working on the problem (at least more parts of your body) rather than sitting idle while your brain does all the work. For some people, the act of at least moving your hands can help you understand the task in a more sequential, or orderly, way.
GeekDad: You also develop games, why have you chosen to also explore the educational app market?
Kicinski : We come from an educational game development background, so making learning tools for kids is almost second nature. But even if we didn't have that foundation, we're actually very interested in making learning engaging and interesting. Learning new things doesn't have to be a dull or burdensome process. (We're also well-aware that it's mostly parents and teachers who buy apps, and they're looking for more value in the gameplay.) And we're all (all 4 of us) parents of kids, ranging in ages from 2-22.
GeekDad: Does the game aspect of your design approach help improve the educational apps you develop?
Kicinski: Games are exciting. There's an element of achievement and pride when you not only can do the math, but you also got the high score, or navigated the maze, or built the tower, or sent the bad guy packing. These "real-life" challenges can be blended with academic tools, like math, literacy, arts or science, so the overall impression is that they go together. You'll need math, or chemistry, to help you fight off the enemy. It's an asset.
GeekDad: What are the future plans for Artgig in educational app development?
Kicinski: We're exploring how to bring the fun back to kids in the upper elementary grades. By the time they're 10 or 12, and in middle school, the fun and games are mostly gone from the classroom, and the focus is put on studying and passing tests. We think there's plenty of room for making the studying fun, and introducing kids to concepts and ways of learning that will engage them and encourage them to be curious.
We also have a lot of fans for our Alien Buddies early learning app. It's a little world of cute aliens who need help from kids with numbers, letters, shapes and colors. At the moment it's geared to preschool, but we'd like to grow up the aliens along with the kids, and provide some more advanced, more complex elementary games.
We'd really like to move outside the skill drill paradigm, and enable kids to come up with creative and collaborative problem solving. We're not sure where that will lead - perhaps to some kind of simulation or team effort, if we can sneak in the classroom study requirements as well.
GeekDad: Thanks.
I'm one who is really hoping that Artgig and others succeed in moving "outside the skill drill paradigm, and enable kids to come up with creative and collaborative problem solving." May that work continue.
Note: On top of all that, it seems that Artgig Apps is offering their Marble Math Jnr app for free on the iTunes Store today - Friday, June 22. Marble Math Junior, says the developer, is a great opportunity to "try before you buy" for parents and teachers interested in Marble Math for older kids.
