Thing 18: Education

A lot of these look FUN…I was disappointed to see that a couple of the ones I really wanted to explore were Apple only or were incompatible with my version of Android, but I was still able to find plenty of Android apps for me to explore. 

Although a lot of these are for fun, I think a few of them could be used in group settings professionally at the library such as using the brain or science 360 app to jump start a program related to those topics (perhaps pulling it up on a presentation format with an Ipad and projector before delving into an author talk/books/learning activity related to the topic). 

For fun I decided to try the Fooducate app because I am trying to eat healthier, and Duolingo to help practice my Spanish from high school (plus I just like to learn new languages). 

Duolingo is fun and easy to use. I was able to connect it to my Google account without ever using an email address or password to sign in which I thought was great. The program has fun graphics and is game-like which makes learning language concepts fun. The app allows the user to learn in a variety of ways by seeing the text, selecting text, typing text and listening to native speaking. I like that you can test out of a level instead of having to play through which is convenient if you have a basic beginning background in a language. The one thing I didn’t care for was the daily reminder that would pop up asking me to practice, but that is small and only an annoyance. There could be a way to turn off the daily reminders in settings, but I didn’t look as I don’t plan to keep the app.

Fooducate is an interesting app that I think is very nicely laid out and I could see being very useful. Often there are foods (like produce) that don’t have nutrition labels. You know they are healthy, but what vitamins do they contain? What calories? What is a serving size?

To use Fooducate you can either create an account or use your facebook log in and fooducate will let you access its database to research different types of foods (everything from produce to string cheese to ice cream. The food index is wide and deep covering not only foods themselves, but also letting you choose a brand name of the food too. If you search for a food type it gives the food a letter rating (A, B, C, etc.) and an explanation of the rating based on how healthy it is for you. Nutritional information is provided in detail including serving size, calories, fat, cholesterol, etc. 

Fooducate gives you several different options for searching for food in its database. You can search by category (meat, breads, dairy, etc.), search by food name (ex. Green peppers), or you can take a picture of the barcode of the item. I admit I was a bit of a skeptic at how well this feature would work, but after trying it a few times I was impressed.

Fun questions related to the food item are at the bottom of the page and are interesting to read through. There are also interesting facts related to the health of the food or ingredients in the food. 

Although both apps I explored were lots of fun, I don’t see myself spending a lot of time playing with Duolingo just because I don’t try to spend more time on my phone then I have too. I can see where this would be a useful app for individuals learning a second language who would like some variance in their practice aside from the usual exercises provided in a book or on CD.

I pretty much fell in love with Fooducate because it gives me a quick and easy way to learn more about the foods I am eating (and how some food choices I think are healthy may not be as healthy as thought!), tips to eat better and a way to easily track my diet and see the overall picture. This will be an app to keep.