Mobile apps vary in functionalities. The more apps are developed, the process of determining whether an app is effective in an educational environment can become next to impossible. The purpose of this chapter is to propose a curation rubric with a specific focus on evaluating mobile apps by utilizing three pedagogical frameworks as guidelines. Existing pedagogical frameworks for categorizing apps have been proposed by Allan Carrington based on Bloom's taxonomy for learning and the SAMR model by Puentedura. In this study the researchers are widening the lens by proposing the inclusion of the levels of instruction by Gagne as a third pedagogical framework as part of a curation rubric for mobile apps. The rational for adding the third framework is supported by the notion that technology should be regarded as “mindtools” which do not only focus on learning with technology, but also rely on effective facilitation and implementation thereof in an educational context.
TopBackground: A Historic Walk-Through
Mobile applications or mobile apps, are software programs which were initially developed by mobile device handset manufacturers for their internal company use. After smartphones emerged, the market for mobile apps grew due to the increasing power and capabilities of the smartphones and the increase of demand. Improvements of the global positioning system, battery life, camera, displays and processor have pathed the way to the development of feature rich applications. In 2008, Apple offered a third-party application distribution system known as App Store that was followed by Google in the Android market, known as Google Play. More distribution markets for apps include Window Phone Store, Amazon App store and BlackBerry World. When HTML5 and cross-platform frameworks were developed, mobile application development increased substantially (Chell, Erasmus, Colley, & Whitehouse, 2015).
Common mobile applications functions include online banking, shopping, social networking, streaming, gambling, instant messaging, voice chat, email, file sharing and games. Many of the applications have been adopted in the business market to support business functions including document storage, travel and expenses, HR, access to corporate intranet and internal messaging. The benefits of these mobile apps include improved user-experience as increased screen resolution, touch screen, enhancement of battery life, and running on more than one device continuously evolve. Also, regular improvement of cellular network increase internet speed. With the development of the Java software application mobile app development increased as it was a user-friendly platform for developers (Chell et al., 2015)