Digital Learning Examples: What Works for Children and What the Research Says

Digital learning is not a single thing —
it is a broad category that includes
everything from genuinely effective
adaptive learning platforms to low-value
entertainment dressed as education.
Understanding which specific digital
learning examples research finds genuinely
effective — and which produce limited
or no educational benefit — is practically
important for every parent choosing
digital learning tools for their child.

This article covers what the research
shows about specific digital learning
examples — the tools, platforms, and
approaches that research finds most
effective for children’s learning.

What Makes a Digital Learning
Tool Genuinely Effective

Research on digital learning effectiveness —
including significant work by Richard
Mayer at the University of California
Santa Barbara — identifies several
characteristics that distinguish genuinely
effective digital learning tools from
ineffective ones:

Clear educational purpose —
specific learning goals with
measurable outcomes.

Active engagement — requiring
the learner to respond, create,
or problem-solve rather than
passively consume.

Appropriate pacing — adjusting
to the learner’s level and
allowing mastery before progression.

Immediate feedback — telling
the learner immediately whether
their response is correct and why.

Minimal distraction — designed
for focused learning rather
than maximum engagement time.

Research and evidence base —
developed with input from
educational researchers and
tested for learning outcomes.

Research-Supported Digital
Learning Examples by Category

Adaptive Learning Platforms

Khan Academy. Research on Khan
Academy — including evaluations
by SRI International — finds
genuine learning benefits for
mathematics — particularly for
students who use it consistently
and with teacher or parental involvement.
Khan Academy provides free,
self-paced instruction across
mathematics and core subjects —
adjusting to the individual
learner’s level and identifying
specific gaps.

Research finding: students
who used Khan Academy consistently
showed significantly greater
mathematics gains than control
groups — particularly when
use was monitored and supported by adults.

IXL Learning. Research on
IXL finds genuine benefits
for mathematics and language
arts practice — through its
adaptive question system that
identifies and targets individual skill gaps.

DreamBox Learning. Research
on DreamBox finds genuine mathematics
learning benefits for elementary
students — through its adaptive,
game-like mathematics instruction.

Language Learning Apps

Duolingo. Research on Duolingo —
including a study by researchers
at the City University of New
York — finds genuine language
learning benefits — particularly
for vocabulary and grammar —
comparable in some research
to university-level language
courses for beginner learners.
Duolingo’s combination of spaced
repetition, immediate feedback,
and gamification produces genuine
learning in brief daily sessions.

Rosetta Stone. Research on
immersive language learning
methods finds genuine benefits
for language acquisition through
immersive, context-based approaches
that Rosetta Stone implements.

Coding and Computational Thinking

Scratch. Research on Scratch —
developed at MIT Media Lab —
finds genuine benefits for
computational thinking, creativity,
and logical reasoning in children
aged eight to sixteen. Scratch’s
visual programming interface
makes coding genuinely accessible
to children — building the
logical thinking and problem-solving
that research finds important
for mathematics and science.

Code.org. Research on Code.org
finds genuine benefits for
computational thinking and
coding skills — particularly
through its Hour of Code program
and its structured coding curriculum
for school-age children.

Tynker. Research on Tynker
finds genuine benefits for
coding skill development in
children — through its game-based
coding curriculum that builds
from visual to text-based coding.

Reading and Literacy Apps

Epic. Research on digital reading
platforms for children finds
that access to a wide variety
of age-appropriate books —
which Epic provides — significantly
increases reading volume and
reading motivation. Epic provides
access to thousands of children’s
books and is used in many schools.

Raz-Kids. Research on Raz-Kids
finds genuine benefits for
reading development — through
its leveled reading system
that matches books to the
individual child’s reading level
and tracks progress over time.

Starfall. Research on Starfall
finds genuine benefits for
early literacy — particularly
phonics and letter recognition —
for children in the early stages of reading development.

Educational Videos and Multimedia

Khan Academy Kids. Research
on Khan Academy Kids finds
genuine early learning benefits —
for children aged two to eight —
through its research-developed
curriculum covering early literacy,
mathematics, social-emotional
learning, and executive function.

PBS Kids. Research on PBS
Kids content — including evaluations
of specific programs — finds
genuine educational benefits
for preschool and early elementary
children — particularly for
vocabulary, early literacy,
and social-emotional learning.

National Geographic Kids.
Research on nature documentary
content for children finds
genuine benefits for science
knowledge, nature connection,
and curiosity — which National
Geographic Kids content provides
in an age-appropriate format.

Mathematics Apps

Prodigy Math. Research on
Prodigy Math finds genuine
engagement benefits — and
some evidence for mathematics
learning benefits — through
its game-based mathematics
practice platform.

Mathletics. Research on Mathletics
finds genuine benefits for
mathematics fluency and practice —
particularly when used consistently
and with teacher involvement.

Number Pieces and Number Frames
by Math Learning Center. Research
on virtual manipulatives finds
genuine benefits for mathematical
understanding — particularly
for young children learning
number concepts — through
digital representations of
physical mathematical manipulatives.

Science and Exploration

Toca Boca apps. Research on
open-ended digital play finds
that apps like Toca Boca —
which provide open-ended creative
digital play environments without
specific educational objectives —
produce genuine creative and
exploratory engagement in young
children without the negative
effects of passive entertainment.

Google Earth. Research on
geographic learning and digital
tools finds that Google Earth —
used with adult guidance and
specific educational purpose —
produces genuine geographic
knowledge, curiosity, and global awareness.

iNaturalist. Research on nature
learning and digital tools
finds that apps like iNaturalist —
which allow children to identify
and record real-world nature
observations — bridge digital
and analog learning in genuinely beneficial ways.

What Research Shows Does NOT Work Well

Research identifies several categories
of digital learning that research
finds produce limited or no genuine
educational benefit:

Passive educational videos
without engagement. Research
on passive video viewing and
learning finds that watching
educational videos without
active engagement — pausing,
discussing, applying — produces
significantly less learning
than active engagement with the same content.

Educational apps with excessive
gamification. Research on gamification
and learning finds that apps
that prioritize points, rewards,
and entertainment over genuine
learning — where the game
mechanics overshadow the educational
content — produce engagement
without genuine learning.

Fast-paced apps for young
children. Research by Dimitri
Christakis finds that fast-paced
digital content — frequent
scene changes, rapid stimulation —
is associated with attention
difficulties and does not produce
genuine learning in young children.

Apps without clear educational
purpose or research base. Research
finds that the majority of
apps marketed as educational
have no genuine research base
and produce no measurable learning outcomes.

How Parents Can Choose Effective
Digital Learning Tools

Research on digital learning tool
selection supports several practical approaches:

Look for a genuine research
base. Research supports choosing
digital learning tools that
have been independently evaluated
and found to produce genuine learning outcomes.

Check for active engagement
requirements. Research supports
choosing tools that require
the child to actively respond,
create, or problem-solve —
not passively watch or click.

Look for appropriate pacing
and adaptation. Research supports
choosing tools that adjust
to the individual child’s level —
not one-size-fits-all content.

Limit total daily digital
learning time. Research supports
monitoring total screen time —
including educational screen
time — and ensuring it does
not exceed developmentally appropriate limits.

Stay involved. Research consistently
finds that digital learning
is significantly more effective
with parental involvement —
asking what the child is learning,
discussing content, and making real-world connections.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Digital Tool Quality Check
What it is: A deliberate honest
assessment of the digital learning
tools your child currently uses —
evaluating them against the
research-supported characteristics
of effective digital learning.

How to do it: This week for
each digital learning tool your child uses — assess:

Does it have a genuine research base?
Does it require active engagement?
Does it adapt to your child’s level?
Does it provide immediate feedback?
Is it distraction-limited?

Keep tools that meet these
criteria — consider replacing
those that do not.

Why it works: Research on
digital learning effectiveness
consistently finds that the
quality of digital learning
tools — not the quantity of
screen time — determines whether
genuine learning occurs.

Practice 2 — The Involvement Practice
What it is: A deliberate weekly
involvement in your child’s
digital learning — the parental
engagement that research finds most improves outcomes.

How to do it: Once each week —
sit with your child during
a digital learning session:

Ask what they are learning.
Try the tool yourself briefly.
Discuss the content genuinely.
Connect it to real-world experience.

Why it works: Research on
parental involvement and digital
learning consistently finds
that parental engagement —
discussing content, showing
interest, making real-world
connections — significantly
improves digital learning outcomes.

Practice 3 — The Research-Based Introduction
What it is: A deliberate introduction
of one genuinely research-supported
digital learning tool — if your
child is not already using one.

How to do it: This week introduce
one research-supported digital
learning tool appropriate to
your child’s age and needs:

For mathematics — Khan Academy or IXL.
For language learning — Duolingo.
For coding — Scratch or Code.org.
For reading — Epic or Raz-Kids.
For early learning — Khan Academy Kids or PBS Kids.

Start with fifteen to twenty
minutes daily — with your involvement.

Why it works: Research consistently
finds that well-chosen research-supported
digital learning tools — used
deliberately and with parental
involvement — produce genuine
learning benefits that justify
their place in a balanced digital and analog learning approach.

The Bottom Line

Digital learning examples vary
enormously in quality and effectiveness —
from genuinely research-supported
platforms that produce measurable
learning benefits to low-value
entertainment dressed as education.
Research is clear: effective
digital learning tools have
clear educational purpose, require
active engagement, adapt to
the individual learner, provide
immediate feedback, and have
a genuine research base.

The parent who chooses digital
learning tools deliberately —
based on research rather than
marketing — stays involved in
their child’s digital learning,
manages distraction, and balances
digital tools with strong analog
foundations — is giving their
child the most evidence-based
digital learning experience available.

Sources

Mayer, R. E. (2009).
Multimedia Learning.
Cambridge University Press.

Pane, J. F., et al. (2015).
Continued Progress: Promising
Evidence on Personalized Learning.
RAND Corporation.

Vesselinov, R., & Grego, J. (2012).
Duolingo effectiveness study.
City University of New York.

Resnick, M., et al. (2009).
Scratch: Programming for all.
Communications of the ACM,
52(11), 60–67.