Pinna: Podcasts & Audiobooks

What is Pinna: Podcasts and Audiobooks app?

Pinna provides kid-friendly podcasts and audiobooks from a curated selection, ensuring the suitability of its material and guaranteeing the absence of advertisements.

Kids with subscriptions to Pinna can listen to content on topics as diverse as computer games, history, and fiction. Subscribers also get access to many printable PDFs that support the podcasts and audiobooks for educational purposes, whether directed by parents or teachers.

Pinna makes a virtue of its lack of screen-based content by encouraging kids to grow their listening skills and reduce their reliance on visually stimulating entertainment. The Pinna apps obviously use screens to access the content, but kids can put away their mobile devices and listen during the playback.

Pinna streams its audio, but users can download it in advance if they know they will not have internet access.

What we love about Pinna app.

Podcasts and audiobooks have exploded in popularity recently, at least among adults. They are convenient, informative, entertaining and varied. Anyone who ignores them is missing out. 

It is great that Pinna is giving kids a way to appreciate the benefits of screen-free enjoyment. They'll get to browse and choose content covering subjects they may never have considered. They don't need to dedicate their time to stationary consumption of material — kids can get up, complete chores or do something creative as they listen.

By combining this safe, well-produced material with supporting teaching resources, Pinna has produced a compelling product that will appeal to many parents and teachers and that their kids will enjoy.

What skills does it teach?

Pinna provides audio content to support kids' education covering subjects like history, music, science, Spanish and more. Many of Pinna's audiobooks and podcasts can also form the basis of exercises to improve writing and other literacy-based skills.

Pinna maps its curriculum materials against the US Common Core State Standards, filters them by age and subject, and details the learning skills each develops.

In addition to audio to help develop kids' knowledge and skills, there is plenty of material to broaden their general understanding, such as a podcast series by Malala Yousafzai or about ancient civilisations. Kids can listen to podcasts about popular topics like Minecraft or Pokemon for entertainment.

Listening and learning from audio-only content is a skill that kids might not often practise. Pinna gives kids a great reason to listen and develop their attention spans and concentration.

What age is it appropriate for?

Pinna offers content suitable for kids aged between 3 and 12. There is nothing unsuitable for kids of any age, but some topics suit some ages better than  others

Is Pinna app easy to use?

The app makes it easy to browse for new content, especially as it lets users filter the results by age. The filters prevent kids from feeling disappointed by selecting a podcast or book that is for a different age group. Parents and teachers can define a listening list for their kids.

The search and discovery tools are easy to use and produce relevant results. Kids won't struggle to play the audio material.

The supporting material is excellent and valuable to both parents and teachers.

How will students benefit?

Pinna is an unusual app for kids as it is as likely to be used for entertainment and education. This is good, as kids won't feel they are making a binary choice between the two. They might start listening to pure entertainment, such as a Minecraft podcast, but then listen to a more substantial topic, such as ancient history or dinosaurs.

Pinna's softening of the boundaries between learning and education will make it more likely that kids will try the learning content.

Being purely audio-based also makes Pinna's content family-friendly. It makes an excellent accompaniment to long journeys which parents and kids can share and discuss.

How will parents benefit?

Limiting kids' screen time is a priority for many parents. Pinna only uses the screen to control the audio content — it does not use video or other visual materials. Parents can use this to get kids to do non-screen activities while they listen.

The activities kids neglect in favour of screens become more appealing when kids can do them alongside Pinna's compelling content. Kids could exercise, draw, engage in crafts, or carry out chores while absorbing the content of a fascinating podcast or audiobook.

Pinna provides related teaching resources for some of its content as downloadable and printable pdf files.

Homeschooling parents will find these extra resources especially helpful. Audio content lets kids hear material presented in a different voice, and with the lesson materials, they can provide an alternative source of learning for homeschooled kids.

How will teachers benefit?

Teachers can play podcasts and audiobooks to their students in the classroom to use them in lessons. Remote learning is still possible with Pinna, as teachers can share a code which gives kids direct access to podcasts and audiobooks.

The teacher admin tools let teachers allocate a playlist to individuals, and a shareable code gives their students access between 8 am and 4 pm, Monday to Friday.

This provision can be an excellent way to provide a universally accessible learning resource.

Kids with limited literacy skills aren't blocked from engaging with the audio content, and the app's broad compatibility reduces the impact of digital poverty. If kids can access an iOS, Android or Amazon mobile device or any other device with a web browser, they can access the content.

Pinna has an educator portal to help teachers and homeschooling parents incorporate its audiobooks and podcasts into their lessons. PDF-based lesson materials and curriculum mapping inspire and will be valuable timesavers for lesson planning.

How much does Pinna app cost?

Pinna is a subscription app. While there is a limited selection of free content, this is for assessment purposes. A monthly or yearly subscription provides full access to the content. The annual option offers the best value, and at the time of this review of Pinna, there was also an 80% discount available as a Summer Saving Promotion.

Pinna will not expose its listeners to advertisements regardless of your subscription choice. This is an essential point because while you may be used to listening to podcasts for free, that is because advertising is more acceptable for adults.

Advertisements are not a desirable method to fund educational resources as they distract learners, and their data-tracking requirements aren't appropriate for kids. We consider charging a subscription fee a safer, fair and reasonable way of providing content to kids.

If you do not want to subscribe, you can purchase access to some programmes without recurring payments.

Is Pinna app safe to use?

Pinna is KidSAFE certified.

Pinna has far more content than we could listen to during a review. However, the material it makes available has been created specifically for kids and won't contain anything inappropriate.

The Pinna app will request permission to provide notifications when it adds new content or other relevant app-based news emerges. You can accept or reject this request without any significant change to your experience.

Pinna uses an adult lock to prevent kids from accessing content not meant for them, such as printable learning resources. It asks for a birth year. This gateway might block young kids but not older ones. However, at the time of this review, the material it hides is not high-risk such as account options.

What can Pinna app improve on?

Pinna leaves a few questions unanswered for international users, which its FAQ could address. In particular, it is unclear whether the listening hours for kids adjust relative to their time zone.

It is a pity that there are no apparent ways teachers can set Pinna-based learning for homework. The teacher-issued code does not work outside of school hours. Parents can subscribe, but teachers cannot expect every child in their class to have that access. A school subscription option which provided access to kids, even if more expensive than the one currently available, could be attractive to many schools.

Overall rating of the app.

Pinna is a fantastic education and learning platform for kids. In the same app, they can look forward to discovering tips for their favourite computer games, listening to spine-tingling stories, and discovering facts about the world.

Pinna can help kids break the connection between screens and entertainment. We recommend that all parents and teachers try Pinna's free content and consider incorporating it into their kids' lives. We have awarded Pinna five stars in this app review.