Samsung provides help for students, as long as you grab a Tab (or Note)

The school year may have just begun, but that doesn’t mean the students at home aren’t already thinking about the next big test, and Samsung wants to let parents know it has some help available for some of its devices.

That next big test isn’t just a pop quiz, and for many kids is likely to be the NAPLAN, an Australian test that doesn’t just measure how well the students are going, but also how well the school is going.

Also known as the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy, it’s a series of tests for students in years 3, 5, 7, and 9 that take place in May over the course of three days, designed to look at the abilities of kids in reading, writing, and maths skills.

Preparing for this test isn’t always easy, what with how young some of the kids can be who are taking it, though, and Samsung has been working on a solution in the form of an app made for its tablets.

Called “SkillsBuilder,” this app offers students in these grades questions and quizzes designed to get them familiar with the way the NAPLAN tests will be worded, to help reduce the intimidation the test can have on test day.

It’s a neat solution, especially as some parents can struggle in finding a way to help their children prepare for the enormity of the tests, which will happen several times over the course of the student’s studying life.

“It can be hard for parents to find the right balance between giving their children access to technology and ensuring that it is not just treated like another toy,” said Jenny Goodridge, Samsung’s Head of Content and Services in Australia.

“Parents can make use of the interactive benefits that tablet devices bring to learning. Tablets can be utilised not only as entertainment hubs but also as a useful study tool through applications and online resources.”

The SkillsBuilder app is free, and is just one such application designed to help students, with another “Mathletics Student” built to cover K-12 mathematics, with synchronisation later on to a desktop version.

There is one thing you’ll need for both of these apps, however, aside for a student, and that’s a Samsung Galaxy Tab or Galaxy Note tablet, as these apps are all available only from the Samsung Apps Store on compatible devices.

At the moment, those compatible devices come from the Galaxy Tab 3 range, and the Galaxy Note tablet range, with prior Galaxy Tabs not eligible for the apps along with any other non-Samsung tablets.

We’re checking with Samsung to see if or when these apps will grace other Samsung tablets such as the Windows 8 based ones in the ATIV range (because there are probably parents who have bought these), as well as if Samsung will be releasing this for other non-Samsung devices. Stay tuned.