Review of Ansel and Claire's Adventure in Africa by Kathy Burdick

Name of App: Ansel and Claire’s Adventure in Africa

Free or Fee: $4.99

Rating: 5/5 stars

Why I like it: Ansel and Claire’s Adventure in Africa is a phenomenal app offering an abundance of educational opportunities. Ansel and Claire, characters from planet Virtoos, act as tour guides and teachers while exploring Africa. The user can choose from three different regions within Africa to explore and learn about. These include, the Serengeti Plains, the Nile Valley and the Sahara Desert. As the user learns about different things within each region there are opportunities listen to dialogue between Ansel and Claire. Ansel asks questions and Claire provides answers to these questions. This is a great feature because it gets students thinking about what they are learning and possible questions that they may have. Teachers can have students jot their questions down as they explore so they can later go back and research any questions that were not answered. 

Ansel and Claire’s Adventure in Africa is not simply an app about the geography of Africa. This app touches on science, history, vocabulary and reading in the process of teaching about geography. Along with their questions, students could also list unfamiliar vocabulary words. I love apps that have multiple teaching opportunities! Students will stay engaged since this app is extremely interactive with the user not only selecting the region within Africa to explore but also selecting the items they want to learn about within that region. Students also take pictures as they learn and place them into the travel log. In addition to the digital travel log, students could also draw pictures of two or three of their favorite things as well as one or two facts about each one to aid in review and retention of the information.

This app could also be the basis of a classroom project. Since there are three different regions to learn about within this app students could be broken into groups with each group focusing on a region. After each group has sufficient time to learn about their region and become the class experts, they could then present the info to the rest of the class. A blank map of Africa could be created with each group adding pieces from their region to it. Ansel and Claire’s Adventure in Africa has so many learning opportunities it fills my mind with ways it can be used in the classroom and I am sure it will do the same for all teachers out there. Along with its learning opportunities, this app has outstanding music and graphics. Cognitive Kids has won me over! Download the app today and let your mind become filled to the brim with ideas!

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