Drops is an engaging language learning app that is part of the Kahoot! family. It is designed for beginner users, especially young students.

Features: Drops is a colorful and lively app that focuses mainly on teaching vocabulary. Like its inspiration, Kahoot!, Drops is game-based and has a minimalistic design.

Each card contains one icon-based design, an audio file, the vocabulary word, and the English translation. Words are organized under practical categories like Travel, Talk, Fun and Recreation, Nature and Animals, and more. The Review Dojo is a special section in Drops to test what you’ve learned using a spaced-repetition algorithm.

Drops has received a lot of favorable ratings and reviews from users and has been featured by CNET and Forbes.

Tom’s Take: When I came across Drops I was immediately intrigued because it’s part of the company that produces the immensely popular Kahoot! game. Drops is more narrowly focused than Kahoot!, but beginner language learners will certainly be drawn in by its lively and colorful ambience.

Price: Free for up to 5 minutes a day. Paid individual and school accounts available.

In 2023 Duolingo, the world’s most popular learning app, launched Duolingo Math, with the goal of personalizing Math learning.

Features: Duolingo Math follows what has made the Duolingo language learning app so successful: short, interactive exercises, AI personalization, and a fun, but challenging, atmosphere.

Duolingo Math offers bite-sized lessons and a gamified atmosphere to make math learning fun. Users can opt for beginner math, covering foundational topics, or intermediate math, emphasizing practical skills with more intricate exercises.

Tom’s Take: Reviews of Duolingo Math have been generally positive. Users have praised it for its fun and interactive way of learning math. I agree with that view!

The material level is appropriate for elementary school students, and perhaps middle school students.

Price: Free with ads. Paid options add special features.

Animated Drawings is a tool presented by Meta AI Research that brings children’s drawings to life by animating characters to move around.

Features: Animated drawings are a series of images—each slightly different from the last—that create the illusion of movement when played in sequence. To use Animated Drawings, users upload a drawing of a character, and Animated Drawings will separate the character from the background, and highlight it. It then displays a map of the character's joints and uses a segmentation mask to animate the character.

You can choose one of several motions and watch your character perform it! And you can share it with others.

Tom’s Takes: Animated Drawings is simple to use and likely a source of wonder and amusement for young children.

Price: Free

BrainPOP is an educational website that offers curriculum-based animated movies, learning games, interactive quizzes, primary source activities, and a breadth of additional resources for students in grades 3+.

Features: BrainPOP uses AI to adapt the learning experience to each student’s needs and progress. Its topics span Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Engineering & Tech, Health, and Arts & Music.

Tom’s Take: BrainPOP has been around for years and is a popular and respected learning resource.

Price: BrainPOP also offers limited content for free, including a movie of the day, several free movies from each topic area, educators’ materials, and more. But BrainPOP is expensive; a yearly teacher’s subscription for K-3 material is $210; grades 3+ $330/year.

Kidgeni is an AI-powered educational game platform that empowers children to learn about artificial intelligence.

Features: KidGeni offers an array of AI tools for kids to learn, from generating AI art to crafting unique stories to creating illustrated books. Kids can creatie images or stories based on a simple text prompt. It uses AI to recommend personalized content based on each child’s reading level and interests.

KidGeni is also unique in that it can turn kids’ art into wearable clothing, from shirts to hoodies. Kids can print their favorite pieces on all types of goods.

Tom’s Take: KidGeni is a fun, safe, and creative way for children to try out some of the key capabilities of the newest generative AI programs.

Price: KidGeni offers 15 credits for free. You can pay-as-you-go $5 or enroll in the Starter kit for $10 a month.

Story Bee is an AI tool for creating children’s stories.

Features: Input a theme and the AI will start to construct a story. Enter a prompt defining your required story circumstance, characters, etc. You can then customize the story and insert visuals. Choose your desired genre, style, and visual aesthetics for any accompanying images.

Once complete, you can you can listen to stories in a favorite voice, including a clone of your own child's voice!

Tom’s Take: StoryBee is a great way to engage young learners in storytelling and make stories more engaging and vivid.

Price: Free for up to 4 stories. BeeLight costs $9 a month and includes up to 40 stories a month

Tiny Storie harnesses AI technology to offer personalized audio storytelling for children.

Features: Tiny Storie is designed to tailor stories to a child’s interests and preferences. It does this by offering children choices as they select characters, and other options. Parents help by setting up a profile for their child, including the child’s age, interests, and favorite topics. As the child interacts with the app, Tiny Storie’s AI system learns from their selections.

Tiny Storie’s goal is to captivate children by providing a personalized and unique story that keeps children engaged It adapts the storytelling experience based on which characters, settings, and plot elements resonate most with the child. Parents can further personalize the story by adding their own audio recordings.

Tiny Storie apart is also a philanthropic mission. A portion of the proceeds from subscriptions or story packs goes to charitable organizations supporting children’s causes.

Tom’s Take: I love how Tiny Storie not only enriches a child’s learning experience, but also contributes to worthy causes.

Price: Free but with paid options.

CharacterAI is a popular AI platform that leverages advanced artificial intelligence technology to create and interact with digital characters.

Features: CharacterAI features AI characters that can simulate conversations, behaviors, and personalities, providing users with a unique and interactive experience. It enables the creation of a wide range of characters, from historical figures to fictional personas, allowing for prolonged and engaging interactions that can mimic real-life conversations.

For elementary school teachers and students, CharacterAI can bring people and subjects to life in a way that traditional textbooks cannot. For instance, teachers can use CharacterAI to create simulations of historical personalities, allowing students to engage in dialogues with these figures.

Tom’s Take: CharacterAI, like other AI, will hallucinate at times so the responses it provides might not always be accurate. But, if leveraged effectively, can create a dynamic learning environment that can make personalities and subjects more engaging for students.

Price: Free

Book & Bot is an experiment that combines a book by a real human, with an AI-generated main character that you can chat with.

Features: MAYA JAM INVENTS A PET is a book designed for ages 4-7 and is a collaboration between an award-winning children’s author/AI researcher and a professional illustrator. . Simply buy the book, read it, then open the chat to play. Kid can chat with Sardine, Maya’s pet goat, who “isn’t very good at math,” but knows “a lot” about gardening and nature games. She also tells funny jokes and likes to invent things.

Tom’s Take: This is a quality collaboration and I like the concept of extending a story and introducing family play.

Price: You’ll need to buy the book ($10 paperback on Amazon) and you will need ChatGPT Pro to chat.