Fun for the Advanced Geography Fact Learner
Community Review for Learn the World - Map, Earth, Continents, Atlas Learning
My Take
This app does not have enough supports and scaffolding to consider it an effective teaching tool. This is better suited for students that are highly knowledgeable of geography and want to learn more facts and figures. The "more info" option for countries simply links to Wikipedia, which isn't the best source and is also incredibly text-heavy, a quick deterrent for most learners. I like the colorful maps and that the country names are pronounced when you click on them, but I wanted to be able to interact more, to perhaps click on the capital and hear its name or see a small blurb with more relevant facts. I really like the "Fly to" option, where you have to mark a trail to multiple countries for a small plane. That is a fun way to test if you know the names of the countries and where they're located. This app could better serve learners if it provided more, and better, learning opportunities prior to taking the quizzes. The preparation mode doesn't necessarily match up to the questions in the quizzes and doing well would require some additional study effort to do well. In the end, this is an eye-catching and well-intended app, but I don't find it to be useful for a basic or general learner. Major geography fans would surely enjoy it, though!
How I Use It
This app could be used to provide extended geography learning in a class. I believe it is best suited for learners that already have a solid sense of geographical knowledge, but want to build their factual background. Perhaps this could provide supplementary practice for students that master basics (country names, capitals) quickly and want a challenge. The information is advanced and (maybe excessively) detailed. This could also be used on an interactive whiteboard to do a challenge with the entire class watching (or coaching).