Wiseland
By Mieke VanderBorght,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Journey to explore big questions only gets you so far.
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Wiseland
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What’s It About?
WISELAND poses philosophical questions and encourages kids to think through the answers. A kid named Sophia and a robot named Phil guide kids through watching videos representing different scenarios, playing games, drawing pictures, and writing their thoughts as they consider possible answers from multiple perspectives. The two questions available at the time of this review were about fairness and what it means to be human.
Is It Any Good?
A small set of kids' big philosophical questions gets some serious consideration with a guided thinking tour, but some elements fall short. Wiseland does well in representing a complicated issue in an easy-to-understand, kid-friendly context. It's also nice to see a variety of prompts that asks kids to think hard about how the issue relates to their own lives. Each representative scenario gets looked at from different perspectives, and there are a lot of "what if" questions. This certainly gets kids thinking but may also confuse them. And there are some technical difficulties and awkward controls that get in the way of kids enjoying it to its fullest. All the material is scripted and presented in a neat little package. On the plus side, kids may discover an interest in a topic they hadn't thought about. However, they don't have any freedom to ask their own questions and explore what's on their own unique, individual minds. All in all, though it does get kids thinking about difficult and abstract concepts, it still doesn't quite live up to the old-fashioned way kids have always explored these questions: through thoughtful discussion and exploration with parents, caregivers, teachers, siblings, or peers.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the questions featured in Wiseland. What does it mean to be fair? What makes humans unique? Those are just the tip of the iceberg for the kinds of things kids wonder about. Pose the questions yourself to open discussion, or pay close attention to your kids to see what questions they come up with.
Let kids know your take on philosophical or moral issues, then ask for their feedback. Do they agree? Why, or why not? What experience have they had with that topic?
Some kids are verbal, some aren't. Let kids explore their "big" questions through multiple means of expression such as stories, discussion, drawings, role-playing, craft making, and more.
App Details
- Devices: iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android
- Subjects: Social Studies : citizenship
- Skills: Thinking & Reasoning : asking questions, thinking critically, Emotional Development : perspective taking
- Pricing structure: Free to try (One question set available with free download; additional sets for $0.99)
- Release date: March 27, 2017
- Category: Educational Games
- Topics: Great Girl Role Models
- Publisher: Enable Training and Consulting, Inc.
- Version: 1.0.8
- Minimum software requirements: iOS 10.0 or later; Android 2.3 and up
- Last updated: April 18, 2017
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