Saturday, January 21, 2012

DK The Human Body App

1-21-2012 10-14-22 AMDK The Human Body App
By DK Canada

About the App

A multi-award winning app that takes a ground-breaking look into the human body with highly accurate, visual and accessible information. The wonders of human anatomy are explored and explained in a way that offers hours of learning, fun and entertainment.
Designed for everyone with an interest in the subject, the Human Body app is a must-have reference. With enough detail to satisfy the demanding student, the app also offers rich illustrations and features for the casual browser. This is the perfect gift for yourself or someone who loves to learn.
FEATURES:
• Highly accurate and accessible information created by leading doctors and practitioners.
• Over 270 specially-designed full color and zoomable high resolution images.
• 12 systems of the body – integrated body, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, respiratory, skin, hair & nails, lymphatic & immune, digestive, urinary and reproductive – each with zoomable illustrations, text and annotations.
• 99 story pages with illustrations, explanatory text and annotations.
• Detailed and expandable annotations for every image.
• Testing tool for learning the parts of the body.
• Four stunning videos showing key processes in the body – the beating heart, inflammatory response, conception, and nerve impulse – each with detailed captions.
• A 3D rotatable human body with selectable layers.
• Functions you can feel – grab your iPad and feel the lungs breath, the heart beat and the nerve impulses race.

My Thoughts

When I realized that DK came out with an app to learn more about the human body, I knew that it would be a wonderful tool for my kids to learn more about the human anatomy.    I will admit that for the younger ones this app might be a bit too advanced for them but when you have a ten years old who is interested in anything related to the human body this is a blessing.

When you start the app, you will immediately get a menu divided into twelve sections – integrated body, skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, skin, hair and nails, lymphatic & immune system, digestive system, urinary system and reproductive system.   Right away, you will see animation as the “bodies” spin to show the back and front of the image one at a time.   A detailed alphabetical search engine can be found at the right corner of the screen.

This past week, we learned how our eyes see things.   So for the purpose of this review, I will spend some time on the eye.     At first I had trouble to find this organ… but after thinking on the lesson we learned I decided to look in the nervous system.   I was rewarded immediately as I saw that on the right side of the image the eye was there. 

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Tapping on the image with the eye,  the app opened multiple images to pick from.    To move from one image to the other, you simply have to slide you finger on it and select the feature you want to have more information on –  the eye for us.

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Immediately, the app will bring you a bigger image of the eye as well as information on this organ.    As you can see below, you can have the eye with the labels of its various parts as well as information on the sequence of vision, accommodation which gives you information on the difference between near and distant vision, or eyes and vision.    In the left corner, you can see a small windows with information on the inside of the eye.   You can read through it easily.  Next to each label, you can also expand the + sign to get more details on the part of the eye.     And if you need to expand the image, you can easily do it from the tip of your fingers.

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The viewing options are interesting too.   You can opt to see the image only and try to identify the parts of the eye,  remove the annotations but still access the information on the eye, or view everything (labels and information).    I find this feature interesting as a student can decided to remove everything and try to name the part of the organ he/she has studied.

Also located at the bottom of the page, you will see a main menu button and a system select button.   The system select option allows you to select a different system in the anatomy without having to go through the main menu.   Personally I find these two somewhat redundant as both are doing the same thing though on allows you to navigate automatically to a specific system while the other brings you back to the main menu.

For other organs, you can have specific videos and sounds.    For example, when I went to the cardio-vascular system and selected the heart, you immediately hear an heartbeat.   It was interesting and different.   Then I was able to see a video with explanations on how the heart beats.   It was very visual and allowed me to get a better understanding on how important it is to have an healthy heart.

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In conclusion, I am very impressed with the quality and details included in this app.    It is definitively a beautiful example on how apps can be used in an homeschool environment and/or as a supplement for school work.    I would highly recommend it to anyone interested about the human body and wants to learn more about it.    This app is mostly geared toward older grades ideally grades 9 and up.   However, if you child is mature enough and express an interest in this kind of information, I would like to suggest that you consider purchasing this app.    The graphics are simply amazing and the exploration of the human body will take you breath away.

The DK Human Body app is available for the price of 6.99$ on iTunes.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

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