Group Multimedia App Evaluation- Vote

Out of the four apps that each of our group members researched, “PenPal Schools” “Peekapak”, “Padlet”, and “Canva”, we have come to the consensus that for our final evaluation we will be diving deeper into PenPal Schools. As a group, we are all looking forward to learning more about the web application and how it incorporates many different Multimedia learning principles.

“PenPal Schools is a website and Multimedia program that is used by thousands of educators in over 150 countries (PenPal Schools, 2020)… It allows students (8 and older) to connect with other similar aged learners from different countries and cultures through “thoughtfully designed, collaborative projects” on a variety of subjects including Literacy, Social Studies, English/Language Arts, Science, Math, Music, Art, Spanish, Environmentalism, Social Justice, Current Events, Cultures, Civilizations, Virtual Reality and much more (Wilson, 2018; PenPal Schools, 2020). The lessons that learners participate in are “self guided, differentiated and mixed media” which motivates [them] to stay engaged (Wilson, 2018).”  (Bjelde, 2020).

This app utilizes a variety of multimedia principles such as collaboration, modality, segmenting, personalization, and many more that will be further explained in our full evaluation.

One of our main concerns with the other three applications was how their information was stored and used. The privacy settings in Penpal Schools allows students to remain protected and relatively anonymous throughout their use of the webpage and application. Each student is linked to a class code (set up by their teacher) and their only personal information given is their first name, last initial, and country.  We had concerns with our other apps’ privacy policy because there were varying degrees of third-party data storage.

In addition to the fewer safety concerns, PenPal Schools feels relevant and authentic to 21st-century learners and modern-day global citizens. By fostering connections to others around the world, promoting digital literacy, and hearing different worldviews, students become more culturally-sensitive, aware, and understanding. With the plethora of learning opportunities present in this app, each of us found it to be a dynamic and inspiring multimedia application for students.

We can all definitely envision ourselves using this app in our own future classrooms as it can be used in many different ways for a number of different grades. The accessibility of the application and the excitement of having a pen pal creates a very engaging and motivating learning environment. 

References

 Bjelde, S. 2020. EDCI 337: Evaluating an Interactive Multimedia Learning Web Application. Retrieved from https://sarahbjelde.opened.ca/2020/06/17/edci-337-evaluating-an-interactive-multimedia-learning-web-application/.