Critical thinking is a key skill in today’s learning and is growing in importance with each passing day. It is a cognitive faculty that embraces several conceptual skills that include synthesising, assessing, analysing, applying and evaluating information, making it important for solving maths and reasoning problems in exams, answering comprehension questions properly, evaluating options with multiple choice papers and, of course, making crucial decisions later in life.
While we recommend a minimal use of iPads, tablets and PCs with children in primary school, whether we like it or not, the use of technology is saturating the way information is presented to our children, as well as the way in which they learn at school. Moreover, in a digitally focused world replete with amateurish content and fake news, the ability to critically assess propositions and make informed decisions becomes essential to learners’ cognitive and intellectual well-being. While these may, on the surface, seem like problems for adults, they are increasingly becoming an ‘information diet’ for children and will most certainly form a large part of their lives as they move towards maturity.
Critical thinking allows students to make informed and rational decisions as it forces them to dive deeper and analyse things logically. What would be viewed as a common fact, which makes sense to ‘surface thinkers’, would often be considered as a provocative statement that invites much reflection and investigation by critical thinkers. The purpose of today’s post is to introduce you to a list of our favourite iPad apps you can use with your kids to boost their critical thinking skills. We invite you to check them out below – the Android versions of these apps will be introduced at a later date.
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Original content taken from: 11 Plus London and http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2017/07/10-good-apps-to-enhance-kids-critical.html
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