Microsoft Word types of mobile educational games for children in primary school

3.2 Computer and mobile educational games for children 
Preschool and early stages of education are difficult for both educators and young learners who need 
to change their main activity from playing to studying. At this age, students easily lose concentration 
and find it difficult to focus for long time. Therefore, subconscious learning in the process of playing 
games, a natural activity for students, is suitable. The use of game approaches, especially integrated 
with the use of appropriate information and communication technologies, will make this transition more 
enjoyable and easier for learners and will achieve better learning outcomes because they will use their 
natural environment - with a computer or mobile phone on the Internet. 
3.2.1 Educational computer games
The development of modern information and communication technologies allows a number of well-
known didactic games to become computer games, which can be successfully used both for the 
realization of cognitive activities and for motivating children to study activities and to support the 
learning content. The use of educational computer games has a positive effect on the development of 
the child, especially in the development of thinking, generating skills for generalization and 
classification, development of memory and attention, coordination and motoric actions [12]. 
[13] adds other useful skills that can be developed with the help of computer games: unobtrusive 
mastery of computer technology; ingenuity; activity and initiative; decision making in critical situations; 
goal setting and pursuit; planning and implementation of plans, etc. 
Researchers [14] have found that sources of educational games for Bulgarian learners are most often 
specialized sites on the Internet, professional groups and blogs on social networks, as well as some 
educational games, a product of Bulgarian and foreign textbooks. There are already a number of 
interactive educational portals (mainly in English) that offer multimedia educational games, didactic 
assignments and exercises, songs, animations and other attractive activities on different topics and 
targeted at different age groups. 
Several computer games in Bulgarian have been studied, mainly supporting the teaching of Bulgarian 
language and mathematics: "Smart Kids", "Travels in Europe", manicheta.com, "Pismenka", 
"Bukvenka", "Cifrenka", "Conversation", "Handwriting", "Gift of the Heart", "Owl" and more, as well as 
the visual programming languages Scratch and Kodu. 
In recent years, Bulgaria's primary education has made the first steps to use games in a slightly 
different context - visual programming in the Scratch environment [15]. Kids build programs 
themselves through coloured blocks - collecting and arranging simple instructions in a game context to 
obtain more complex objects to execute instructions. The goal is to help develop "computational 
thinkingg" so that they can solve problems by dividing them into smaller parts, which are more easily 
solved, etc. 
3.2.2 Educational mobile games
Training today follows the trends of information and communication technology development, in 
addition to traditional forms of training, innovative forms such as mobile learning (use of mobile 
devices and technologies in the e-learning process) are applied [16]. Mobile learning is part of a new 
landscape [17], and it provides many opportunities for personal, informal, spontaneous, and situated 
learning. By combining both mobile learning and mobile games, it will provide the user with a new 
experience like no other [18]. Through the use of mobile devices, students of all ages levels and 
backgrounds will be able to collaborate, engage and learn in different ways [17]. According to [19] 
research in mobile education is mainly focused on providing educational content as a complement to 
formal schooling. The increasing use of mobile education inevitably creates the need for the 
introduction of new standards and an evaluation system for the educational value of mobile apps [20]. 
A study of the experience of children up to 8 years in the use of digital technologies shows that: 
children start using these devices at 3-4 years of age; tablets and smartphones are kids' favourite 
devices (who have access); children quickly learn basic skills, as some of them are not only passive 
consumers but actively create their own content; and almost all children use the devices for 
entertainment only [21]. 

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The selection of good learning applications for children is important because previous studies have 
shown that their learning performances could be disappointing without proper guidance or learning 
design [22]. 
[23] presents statistics according to which the largest share of downloaded mobile applications are 
freeware and the most numerous of downloaded applications are games.
 
An analysis [23] of applications suitable for mobile education of children in pre-school has been made, 
and it has been established that the majority of the applications examined require a permanent 
internet connection. Some applications have multilingual support, but most do not support Bulgarian. 
In addition, the annexes satisfy the training material specified in the State Educational Requirements 
of the Republic of Bulgaria (DII) in only a very small proportion, most of which cannot cover even one 
area. The same can be said about the initial stage of education - lack of appropriate mobile 
educational applications, which are in Bulgarian language, in accordance with the State educational 
requirements, which can be applied in support of school education or during the children's free time. 
Table 1. Mobile operating system market share (October 2019, Source – Statcounter) 
[24]