Peer Review

Color Uncovered App for iPad

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Reviewed:: Mar 14, 2014 by Teacher Education

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Overview:: This app is a highly engaging interactive iPad ebook that features fascinating illusions, articles, and videos about color. It has been developed by the creative team at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The site states," Explore the surprising side of color with Color Uncovered, an interactive book that features fascinating illusions, articles, and videos developed by the Exploratorium. How is Monet like a honeybee? What color is a whisper? Why is it so hard to find your car in a lamp-lit parking lot? Color Uncovered features a wide spectrum of cool color-related topics to explore. Learn why friends shouldn’t let men buy bananas. Try your own color experiments on the iPad using simple items you have at home: a CD case, a drop of water, and a piece of paper. Discover how the iPad and other devices create color. Find out what causes afterimages—and more."
Type of Material:: App for iPad; Free at the iTunes Store
Recommended Uses:: This app can be used as an anchor, a motivator, or a challenge for a thoughtful art and/or science lesson on color and how the eye perceives the things it sees. It could be used as part of a unit on light and how we see, using simulations as an interactive laboratory experience.
Technical Requirements:: Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with iPad. It has been updated for Retina display and iOS 6.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The goal of this app is to explore color with tools and experiences that lead to moments of discovery, learning, and awareness. Users will: develop a deeper understanding of how the eye and brain interpret visual stimuli; recognize how artists can use the brain's interpretation of light to achieve various effects; be able to demonstrate that animals and plants interact using different frequencies of light from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): 1PS4-2 Students who demonstrate understanding can: Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that objects can be seen only when illuminated PS4.B Objects can be seen if light is available to illuminate them or they give off their own light Cross-Cutting Concept: Cause and Effect Connection to Common Core: Language Arts: W1.8 With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question NGSS: 4-PS4-2: Students who demonstrate understanding can develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects and entering the eye allows objects to be seen
Target Student Population:: Upper elementary students through adults will find much to investigate with this interactive app.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: None.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: Through the use of clear explanations, colorful images, optical illusions, video clips, and articles, the app guides users though experiments with color. Sometimes household items are involved which makes it very real and relevant. When experiments are completed, users can click on a button to discover more information about the experiment. This is a very comprehensive learning object. It not only allows the user to explore the scientific processes of "seeing" and the properties of light, but also integrates the science with art and everyday experiences. It is a good balance between simulation and text. The text is scientifically accurate without "dumbing down" the science.
Concerns:: None.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: This interactive ebook is designed for engagement and investigation into color, color blindness, painting, the use of pigment, emotions and color, optical illusions, and light refraction. The app can be used in a variety of ways. It can serve as a tutorial. It can be the beginning point of research for small groups, and a teacher can use the experiments to share with the whole class. Students can do the experiments together and then share results with each other. Concepts from the book can be extended to lessons about color work, prisms, other optical illusion, and research on vision and color. The design components are varied and are used to deepen the student's knowledge and encourage the asking of new questions. However, one of the most important elements of its effectiveness is that the user will go through the material over and over again without getting bored and always learning something new.
Concerns:: None.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: Not only do all the internal links, animations and pop up screens work, there is a seamless non-linearity that the technological design makes using this app intuitive. Color Uncovered has an intuitive design that easy to navigate. The table of contents can be viewed at the beginning and each section is hyperlinked. Once you are at any section of content, a double tap at the bottom of the screen brings up the content pages there. You can then easily slide through the content there while staying on the page you are viewing. Images are colorful and current and directly support the content. The Exploratorium has a web site that explores some of this content and more. http://www.exploratorium.edu/
Concerns:: None.

Other Issues and Comments:: This app for the iPad is exemplary. It demonstrates how the unique nature of the iPad can be accessed for learning complex material and still have a great deal of fun. It is appropriate for classroom and home use.
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