The estimated reading time for this post is 3 minutes
Be Confident in Who You Are: A Middle School Confidential Graphic Novel
If you could wave a magic wand and give your middle school child one gift, what would that gift be? Straight A’s? Popularity? Success at sports? Freedom from stress, bullying, or embarrassment?
Maybe, but challenges are what shape a child into adulthood. As much as we would like to protect our children from harm, a childhood without challenges is a childhood wasted.
What I would wish for is my children to have self-confidence. To be secure in the knowledge that they can handle whatever life throws at them. Generally, that realization comes only after years of hard knocks, if at all. But wouldn’t it be great to speed that process along?
Well, The Wonder of Tech can’t give you that magic wand. Instead I can recommend an iPad app that plants the seeds of self-confidence in your child.
If you are the parent of a middle school student, you should definitely check out the new iPad app Be Confident in Who You Are from Electric Eggplant. You may already be familiar with the Middle School Confidential Series of books. I was not when Electric Eggplant contacted me asking me to review their app. Somehow, when they discovered that I was a mom to twin tweens and a tech blogger, they thought I should review their app. (Full disclosure: Electric Eggplant sent me a promo code to review their app so I would not have to pay for the app.)
In addition to reviewing this app myself, I enlisted the help of male and female middle school students. They all agreed that it was a fun app that they would be more likely to read than a book.
The goal of this app is to raise the self-confidence of middle school students in a fun and interactive way. This app teaches kids how to deal with teasing, bullying, peer pressure, insecurities and many other challenges that adolescents face. From the evaluation of the app by me and several middle school students, this app definitely achieves this goal.
The app is based upon the Middle School Confidential series of books and presents its information in comic book form. Here is a sample image from the app:
Functionality
The app makes effective use of the iPad’s features by incorporating sound, gestures and easy navigation. The sounds are particularly effective, when you swipe to turn the page, the app makes a sound as if the page were turning. Not only did I think this was very cool, my tween testers loved this feature. The background sound effects and music enhanced the experience without being annoying.
The app has easy navigation. A swipe turns the page. The app also lets you jump to different chapters, zoom in on every picture and find out more about the characters. You can even email the characters, which makes them seem more real.
Message
What really makes this app work is that the message of self-confidence is buried in the midst of the fun of the app. All of my tween reviewers loved interacting with this app and said they enjoyed using this app than more than reading a book, even a comic book. That may be the nature of the next generation, but all of my reviewers were familiar with iPad apps so weren’t in awe of the fact that they were finally getting to play with an iPad.
My guess is that students would be more likely to read the Middle School Confidential series of books after using this app. The books offer features like quizzes and resources that aren’t available in the app.
Any Downsides?
The app is $3.99 in the iTunes App Store which is much less than the price of $9.99 for the book from Amazon. But, as with other apps, you can’t share this app with your friends unless you hand over your iPad to them.
The Bottom Line
If you are a parent to a middle school student or a middle school guidance counselor and have an iPad, then this is a useful and entertaining app. Most likely, you won’t have any trouble getting your child to use this app. The message that the app delivers is one I think every parent would like to instill in their child. What better way to teach the lessons of confidence than through a fun and effective iPad app?
What a wonderful idea! I know from my older son’s experience that middle school can be the toughest time, a time when students are handed labels by their peers that are often hard to shake. It is all about confidence and the ability to define yourself to others. I will have my current middle-school son check out this app!
Hi Kathy, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I agree, middle school years can be very tough. I am so pleased to write about an app that can help children deal with the pressures of middle school. I hope you and your son enjoy this app!
is this too lame for the Dataman contest? (comment 1)
Hi Ron, Not at all. Thank you very much for leaving a comment and congratulations on being a Wonder of Tech contest winner!
I would love a copy of DataMan for my new iPhone 4! Hope I win (second comment)
Hi Kaylin, Congratulations, your hope has come true! Enjoy DataMan on your new iPhone!
Hi Carolyn,
This app sounds very interesting. I wish I had this when I was atteding middle school.
I’m not sure if we can use it in Norway, since middle school (and the culture) is very different from the US. But the idea for this app sounds brilliant.
Hi Jens, I agree, I wish that Middle School Confidential was available when I was in middle school as well. I’m glad that my kids got to experience the app during their middle school years.
The developer of this app, Electric Eggplant contacted me to let me know that a free update to the app has just been released in the iTunes App Store for anyone who has downloaded the earlier version of the app.
The developer also wanted me to make sure that Wonder of Tech readers knew about zooming in on each frame of the story. You can zoom in on a frame and read the story frame by frame by swiping each frame instead of reading the story in the full page mode.
If you get this app, please leave a comment here and in the iTunes App Store.
Just downloaded it. The app is fun and interactive. Will let you know what the tween thinks.
Hi Stephanie, Try zooming in on the first image and then swiping to view each image. I think the app is even more fun that way.
I’ve already said this personally to Carolyn, but wanted to share it here as well. We are so pleased by her thorough and fair review of our Be Confident app!
What we love so much about her review is that she really does see the educational value of our app in the area of social and emotional learning. We do too, of course, but we’re probably just a bit biased. So when others echo our feelings, it’s very gratifying!
Hi David, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thank you for your kind words about my review of Be Confident. I am pleased to review an app that is so valuable in both content and functionality. Your app delivers an important message in a fun and unique way. Well done!
Not to give away the plot, but my son just had the same thing happen to him at his dance recital last night. The music stopped but he just kept dancing. I’m not sure if he knew what to do because of the Be Confident app, but it sure came in handy!
Hi CB, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! What a coincidence that the same thing happened to your son as the character in Be Confident! I am glad he read the app before his dance recital as that probably helped him have the confidence to keep going. Thanks for sharing!