Webinars - So many apps, so little time

Webinars and online classrooms are pretty powerful teaching tools especially when getting together in person just isn't possible, as we found with our last class. It was pretty neat to be cuddled up under a blanket drinking my coffee, discovering what my classmates had learned about on their various conferences - and all live! It was obvious that everyone who presented that day had put a lot of thought into their assignments, as they were all very well done.

We were given the task of watching 3 webinars and reflecting deeply on them, choosing our top 3 apps from each.  Here's what I found!

Webinar: Severe Autism

The apps presented in this webinar covered a variety of skills and behaviours related to Autism. What I liked the most about the webinar were the videos that were provided that showed a few of the apps in action with students. The videos were a nice touch to provide first-hand accounts from people who have used the apps and how they've been successful. There are a whole lot of apps out there to choose from, and it's helpful to see what they actually look like being used in the school context.

My top 3 apps from this webinar were (in no particular order):

1. TapSpeak Button Plus ($49.99)



TapSpeak Button Plus is an app with a switch that will record and play messages. You can also customize the buttons with pictures and phrases from a library, or you can add your own. There are also a wide variety of options for customizing the color of the buttons, rate of speech, etc. 

I've never worked with a student who used a switch before, but if I did I would definitely want this app. I could see using this with one of my students who has cerebral palsy for literacy activities (such as the read aloud of "Brown bear, brown bear") and math (e.g. skip counting activities).TapSpeak looks incredibly easy to use, which is a key factor when choosing an app - not only for students, but for teachers when programming the app.


This is an app for students who may have excellent receptive language but have difficulties with their expressive language. It shows the user cause and effect in a very powerful format.


2. My Pictures Talk ($4.99)

This is a video modeling app that is similar to Pictello (which I've described below), but it incorporates video instead. Video modeling is powerful because videos can be shown repeatedly to reinforce desired behaviours and to focus on specific skills.

My Pictures Talk is easy to use and fairly inexpensive considering its capabilities. Here's a video demonstration:



 3. Injini ($29.99)

     

Injini is an app that reinforces a variety of skills including fine motor, visual discrimination, following directions, and problem solving (among others), through the use of educational games. It is user friendly and has reinforcers the whole way through, which is great for students who would benefit from that type of encouragement. There is a great variety of games to choose from in this app which looks like it's well worth the price.

Webinar - Apps for Action in Communication Disorders

I enjoyed that this webinar looked at apps for a wide range of ages, spanning from young children to adults. It's important to keep in mind not only what our students will be working with in the short term but in the long term as well, and keeping that in mind the apps they may be using in the future when choosing the apps they use now.   Within an app itself, the school team should always have an idea of short and long term goals for the student's communication and how they will best use the device to achieve those goals.

Proloquo2Go is an obvious choice for a top runner out of all these apps, but I thought I'd explore 3 other ones a little more because I don't want to be too redundant, and it's always good to add more tools to my kit than just the ones I'm already comfortable using.

1.MyVoice Now TalkRocketGo ($99.99)

           

When I was viewing this app what stood out to me was that it would be excellent for an older student to use, given that the pictures are of real objects so it has a more mature feel to it. Because this app links up to a website for further support and options (a neat option), it's important to consider that a teacher or the student using it would need the time and skills to fully utilize all of its' features. From the commentary on the webinar it seems as though this app would be easily customizable, which especially makes sense for the person who's actually using it.

I also found it interesting that a male voice comes free with the app but it costs $4.99 to purchase the female voice option.....

2. Strip Designer ($2.99) 

            

Language Development

I'm a big fan of anything that helps students create comic books because they love making them. In my experience even the most reluctant readers/writers have a soft spot for reading and creating graphic novels and comic strips. This app is a really reasonable price and comes with lots of features that make it extra appealing for students to use, such as being able to use pictures taken or saved on the device to use in their comics. Students can then add speech bubbles, drawings, etc. to these photos, or sketch their own pictures and add all kinds of neat effects.

This app could be used to create fictional stories, procedural writing, journaling, or to teach routines. When a comic is finished it can be saved to your photo album or emailed to family, friends, and teachers. I could see students getting really into this app!!

Here's a nice little student review of the app:



3. Pictello ($18.99)

      

With Pictello, you are able to create stories using your own pictures and videos. Text to speech can be incorporated, or you can record your voice to read aloud the text. It's a super user-friendly app that has lots of different uses, from sequencing to social stories. Non-verbal students could create photo-books to share their stories and experiences, and it could also be used for scheduling, as well as to reinforce receptive and expressive language. The universality and wide scope of this app makes it very appealing for teachers and students.



Webinar - Apps in Special Education

What I loved the most about this webinar was that so much of it was finding out more about the apps that are already on my iPad. What I learned from it is not only useful in school - I've been using some of the tips and tricks myself! I hadn't even noticed the Reminders app on my iPhone or iPad until I watched the webinar, now I use it all the time. It was also great to learn more about the Notes app and it's functions, which are definitely more extensive than I realized. Another bonus - all of the apps highlighted below are free!

Here are my top 3 apps from this webinar:

1. Dragon Dictation (Free!)

 

I'm not a huge fan of the program Dragon Naturally Speaking for desktop computers, but the Dragon app far exceeds that program in terms of user-friendliness and general functionality. I would use this with students who have difficulty with their fine motor skills (difficulty writing/typing) or for those students who are much better able to verbalize their ideas than write them down. Anyone using this app does need to be able to speak somewhat clearly in order for it to translate accurately into written output. It's excellent for taking notes, writing stories, and emailing amongst many other uses.

2. Skype (Free!)

           


Skype has so many uses I'd never thought of in an educational setting! I always thought of it as a basic video calling program but there's so much more to it. I can't take credit for these ideas, obviously - they're all from the webinar and so interesting. It can be used for supporting students who are hard of hearing - students can sign to each other or have an interpreter present if it's being used as an interface for that. Students who wouldn't otherwise be able to physically access a location could use it to attend classes or lectures. It can also be used for video tutoring! So cool!


3. TED (Also FREE!)



Obviously I'm a huge fan of TED, I've already included a couple of TED talks on this blog to illustrate the power of technology. Each TED talk is given by an expert in their field and there is a huge range of topics to choose from. My father first introduced me to TED talks, and what I liked about them immediately was that I always had the attention span to watch the whole thing because not only are they fascinating - they're short! (They have a 20 minute maximum, which I wasn't aware of until I watched this webinar).

TED talks are so engaging, and provide a plethora of information. Students might watch them to gain access to this information, to watch and rehearse public speaking techniques, or to inspire them for their own "expert" talks. 

On that note, and to end this blog entry, here's a TED talk titled, "How games make kids smarter". It's a really intriguing discussion about the way that games have evolved and the connection between games and learning. He starts off talking about Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego which is a classic! I'm not sure I agree with everything he's saying but he definitely got my attention and has a lot of points worth thinking about. What do you think of his prescription at the end of the presentation?

What the what?

I was programming some weather symbols into my student's Proloquo2Go boards and when I entered the word "rain" as a button label, a picture symbol of Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) popped up. I tried to find it on Google Images but didn't have any luck. So random.

                                              

The Onion That Is Proloquo2Go

During our last class we used Proloquo2Go to create a library of symbols and phrases for a specific student based on a case study description.

What started off as a seemingly straightforward task (even though we were warned by Barb that it wouldn't be) revealed itself to be quite complicated when we began making up the various boards. Even deciding on what the four different settings should be was difficult.

Before beginning our assignment, we had a look at a couple of slideshows about communication. The discussion about moving from a static to a dynamic communication device really made me take a step back to think about how best to use the AAC devices we have available to us. My automatic reaction would be to provide a student who is currently very limited in their communication the best device possible - and in my mind that would be one that gave them as much communication abilities as possible. Now I understand better that there needs to be a very strategically planned out transition for each individual who will go from either limited or no communication to an AAC...and that plan will completely depend on the individual and their needs and cognitive abilities.  Reinforcers are also critical to introducing an AAC device to a student - if they aren't reinforced for using it, and given what they're asking for immediately, they're not going to buy into it and no matter how fancy the equipment is - they won't want to use it. 

Barb told us about a communication assignment she's assigned in the past where students have to go to a party and be completely non-verbal...without telling anyone what they're doing or why. I think you'd have to be really disciplined and brave to do that - and hope you have some pretty understanding friends. I could totally imagine one of the scenarios she described, when a student's friends stopped even trying to communicate with her after awhile of her not responding. I'd probably give up in frustration too. If I was the girl who was being temporarily non-verbal, I'd really really want to tell my friends what was going on - I'm honestly not sure how long I'd last. For our students who have limited to no verbal abilities, this is every day of their lives. They have so many valuable thoughts and ideas to share, and ways that I'm sure they'd like to contribute to class and peer conversations, but are limited in how they can do so.

I teach 40% in a grade one classroom right now, which means I teach the class every afternoon. Last week I was in for the full day because my teaching partner was out sick, so that meant I had to do the morning routines with the class. I've done them before, and I think I've pretty much got the schedule figured out. What I didn't anticipate, however, was that Allan's (not his real name) EPA would leave the room for about 10 minutes as the class was settling into partner reading. Allan has Cerebral Palsy, and at the moment uses picture symbols on the tray of his wheelchair to communicate (he's the student who's getting an iPad this month - yay!). When I went over to check on Allan and his reading partner, Allan was visibly upset and repeatedly pointing to the agenda symbol on his tray. I (foolishly) assumed that he'd already done his agenda with his EPA and tried to tell him that agenda time was over, now it's time for partner reading. He wouldn't accept this reply from me and continued to point to the agenda symbol while beginning to tear up. His reading partner and I tried to comfort him by reading him a story and immidating the animals in it, which made him laugh a little but he still kept going back to the agenda symbol. I looked around the classroom for his agenda but couldn't find it. When his EPA came back in the room I let her know that he was upset, and she explained to me that usually he and his partner would complete the agenda together and then the teacher signs it - and he doesn't like to go on with his day without having done it. There were so many frustrating aspects to all of this - that I didn't know where his agenda was kept (in his bookbag in a zipped up bag), I didn't know what he was trying to tell me, he couldn't tell me what he wanted to say, etc., etc. I'll be better prepared for next time if that happens but I'm also looking forward to him getting his iPad even more now.

That being said, working him up to using Proloquo2Go will take some time and, as I mentioned above, some very strategic planning to go from using the static pictures to the dynamic boards in the program.

Mary and I worked consistently for the day on Saturday to try to make 4 comprehensive boards for our case study student, to encompass 4 possible settings where she would need to communicate the most effectively. This is where the extremely original metaphor of the onion comes in, because as we delved into each of these categories more and more layers of possibilities for communication were revealed. I felt like we could've kept going for hours with this assignment and still not have finished, with all of the options that are available.

There are a few key things that I'll need to keep in mind when using Proloquo2Go with my own students, and that's that I will have to constantly ask myself what is going to be most effective for them to communicate (i.e. what messages and settings will they realistically be using in their everyday lives) and that the original boards we make as a team will, and should, change as we go along. It will be a learning process to discover what messages are useful and what aren't, and what scenarios we haven't thought of. The great thing about this program is that we can easily adapt it as the student's needs and abilities evolve, and various situations arise. We'll also need to find a balance between adapting for the student's needs and not overwhelming them with too much change or information at once.  

This isn't really related to what we did in class last week but it's so neat. Here is a very cool TED talk about "sketching electronics". Some people's brains amaze me.