Daisy the Dinosaur
Mindprint Rating
Tags
Skills
Mindprint Expert Review
Pros
- The drag and drop interface will be intuitive and easy for most elementary school students.
- The graphics are cute and engaging to encourage students to program.
Considerations
- The instructions are limited and students with weaker reasoning or visual skills may need adult help at first.
- Users cannot save their work which can be frustrating for children.
- The app has limited longevity either because it requires a high degree of independence or because those who are interested will want a bigger challenge.
Mindprint Expert Review
This is a cute, easy-to-use app to teach students the early reasoning skills associated with computer programming. Students learn basic commands, move, jump, spin, and repeat, through a drag-and-drop command interface. For example, to make Daisy reach the star, the student will need to drag the move command to the programming box, put the drop-down menu on forward, and then drag and drop the jump command before hitting play. The interface is intuitive but the instruction is not explicit, so some students may need an adult to help them understand what they need to do. Once students have mastered the drag-and-drop interface, they can go to free-play mode and have Daisy do whatever they please using six different commands. Daisy offers a relatively easy-to-learn and engaging interface to introduce computer programming to elementary students. However, students who do not enjoy creative, independent play could tire of it easily and students who are interested in programming will outgrow it quickly.
Academic Benefits
Improves academic skills
- Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
- Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
- Presents educational concepts accurately
- Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
- Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
- Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
- Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)
Fun
Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range
- Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
- Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
- Visually appealing to children in the target age range
- Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
- Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
- Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
- Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option
Easy to Use
Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range
- Has a free or trial version
- Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
- Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
- Student should be able to use independently after first use
- Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
- Multiple users can save a profile
- Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
- Can play without sound and not distract others
- Students can save work between sessions
- Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
- Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
- Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
- Overall - Easy to use
Manufacturer Description
Learn the basics of coding with Daisy the Dinosaur!
Built by the creators of Hopscotch.
This free, fun app has an easy drag & drop interface that kids of all ages can use to animate Daisy and make her dance on their screen. Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app's challenges.
If you like Daisy, continue learning with our award-winning flagship app: Hopscotch!
App Store: https://hop.sc/get_hopscotch
Website: https://www.gethopscotch.com