A Detailed Critique of the ABC Artmaker Science-Based App

This essay critically evaluates the ABC Artmaker app, designed for young children, focusing on its features, purpose, and development. It explores the app's appropriateness for early year settings, considering its user-friendly interface and alignment with educational guidelines, such as the Childcare Act of 2006. The essay justifies the app's suitability, highlighting its ability to aid children's learning and address physical challenges. However, it also acknowledges limitations, such as the time required to create animation videos and the challenges of updating the application. The essay provides recommendations for mitigating these concerns, suggesting teacher guidance and manual updates. The essay references several academic sources to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive analysis of the app's strengths and weaknesses, concluding with a balanced perspective on its potential use in early childhood education.

Running head: CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
Critique of a Science-Based App
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

1CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
1. A description of the app
• What is it and what is it designed to do? What is the approximate cost of this app? Who
developed the app?
ABC Artmaker is one of the most reputed applications which has been especially
designed and developed for the children so that it can help them to create attractive and simple
pictures which can help them to study (Cutler, Reavley & Jorm, 2018). The puzzles which are
given by the schools can be solved using this application as well; along with that the application
can be very much useful in making smaller motion pictures which can help the students to
understand their academics in a better way. The play school characters can be modified by the
students using this application. The application can be used to modify an existing still
photograph into a collage picture, special effects and music can be added to the to the pictures,
special effects and variety of background themes are provided by this application to that it can
significantly contribute to the art work given from the play schools (Garvis & Lemon, 2015).
Sounds from different instruments such as violin and piano can be also added using this
application which was exclusively designed for the young children. There are no such gambling
content in this application as it can be a source of concern for some of the parents.
These applications is absolutely free of cost and are found in the Apple store, the recent
updates of this application has numerous updates which can enhance the existing services offered
by this application to all of its young customers.
Having one of the best ratings among most of the creativity applications all around the
world it can be said that this is one of the best applications for making animation videos as it
provides step by step instruction to its younger consumers so that they can learn the ways to their

2CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
own animations and story slideshows (Alter-Muri, 2017). This application was developed by the
Australian Broadcasting Commission and the suggested age for using this application is a
minimum of four years.
2. Justification of why you think this app is appropriate for use in an early year setting.
Explain how the selected app meets the guidelines from the literature and how you would
overcome any of the concerns that could be raised in relation to the app
The advanced and the user friendly specifications provided by this application is very
much suited for most of the younger children who have just started their educational carriers in
different categories of early year settings such as the preschools, childcare homes, play schemes,
summer camps training schools, day nurseries and the child-minders (Knight & Dooley, 2015).
The faculties of these early year settings are most aware of the specification provided by this
application as well as other similar applications and most of the faculties recommend the use of
this science based application for the younger children.
As discussed by Donahoo (2018), the application was developed in such a way so that it
deals with most of the complexities which comes its way in terms of its content and
inappropriate use of the application for illegal activities. The researcher of this paper stated that
this application follows the Childcare Act of 2006. The researcher stated that the use of this
application is very much beneficial for the younger kids in their early learning phases. The
researcher also stated that the use of these kinds of science based application can have a lasting
impact on the kids due to its exquisite specifications. The researcher highlighted that this
application can be used by the physically challenged kids also. Considering its user friendliness
it can be said that this application can be very more useful under the guidance of effective
teachers who understands the importance of this application and can be helping hand for the kids

3CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
to understand the new patches or developments which are frequently added in this application.
The prime weakness of this paper is that it states most of the advantages of using this science
based application, whereas the most significant limitation of the paper is that it do not focuses on
the limitations of this applications especially in terms of updating the recent versions which is a
bit difficult procedure for a young 5 year old student. Thus, considering all the assumptions
made by the researcher it can be said that this science based application is highly recommended
for the younger students.
Apart from the numerous advantageous provided by this application it can be said that
this science based application have numerous disadvantageous as well especially in terms of the
time required to develop an animation video (Dooley & Knight, 2015). The huge amount of
choices provided by this application can be a significant disadvantage foe the young users of this
application as it can confuse them to choose the options they are looking for. The time taken for
making changes to a same animation file can be surely one of the disadvantages of this
organization. Thus the time required to prepare a story slide show or an animation video is one of
the main disadvantage of this application.
Along with the above stated disadvantage it can be said that updating the latest version of
this application from the Apple Store by the younger students is a huge disadvantage of this
application, it has to be either automatically updated using an active internet connection or has to
be done manually by the teachers of the early year settings.
Overcoming concerns
The above two disadvantages of this science based application can be mitigated in the
first place if the faculties of the early year settings are aware of these issues. The concern of the

4CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
huge time consumption of this application can be significantly minimized if the users of this
application are provided with manual assistance, they can easily guide the students regarding the
best picture they can select for their story, the best back ground image which can be selected for
their picture, the best sound which will be applicable for their slides shows, which audio file can
suit their slideshows and so on (Dezuanni & Gattenhof, 2015). Thus the application of a helping
hand for each of the users of this science based application can be very much beneficial to
overcome the concern of huge time needed to prepare a file in this application.
Before handling over the application to the children they need to check whether the
application required any kinds of updates or not (McLean & Edwards, 2016). They should be
updating the applications manually before handling over the control to the children. Using this
procedure the disadvantage of the updating procedure of this application can be mitigated.

5CRITIQUE OF A SCIENCE-BASED APP
Reference
Alter-Muri, S. B. (2017). Art education and art therapy strategies for autism spectrum disorder
students. Art Education, 70(5), 20-25.
Cutler, T. L., Reavley, N. J., & Jorm, A. F. (2018). How ‘mental health smart’are you? Analysis
of responses to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation News website quiz. Advances in
Mental Health, 16(1), 5-18.
Dezuanni, M., & Gattenhof, S. (2015). Arts education and iPads in the early years. In iPads in
the Early Years (pp. 38-51). Routledge.
Donahoo, D. (2018). Unpacking screentime: What should digital technology and early childhood
look like?. Educating Young Children: Learning and Teaching in the Early Childhood
Years, 24(2), 29.
Dooley, K., & Knight, L. (2015). Visual arts learning with iPads. In iPads in the Early Years (pp.
111-130). Routledge.
Garvis, S., & Lemon, N. (2015). Young children photographing their learning to share their lived
experiences of the learning environment. In Understanding Digital Technologies and
Young Children (pp. 60-72). Routledge.
Knight, L., & Dooley, K. (2015). Visual arts learning with iPads. IPads in the early years:
developing literacy and creativity, 103À122.
McLean, K., & Edwards, S. (2016). Beginning the conversations about young children’s
engagement with technology in contemporary times. Understanding digital technologies
and young children: An international perspective, 155-166.