So one of the assignments for my Assisstive Technology class is to discuss some apps that could be useful in an educational setting, especially for students with disabilities. Here are a few that I found:
StoryBuilder for IPad $7.99
This app helps students create a story using story lines that the app gives you. The app claims to targets picture description, word order, sentence formation, vocabulary, making predictions, cause/effect, pronouns, verb tense, and sequencing. It is designed to help children improve in paragraph formation, integration of ideas, and making higher level abstractions by inference. This app would be beneficial to students with special needs because it's like a story starter, a way to help students get started with writing a story, and to use their creativity to build on them.
I like that there are so many story lines to create stories from. I also like that students can record their own narrative with their own voice and also that they can email their stories. I don't like that the app costs money.
I definitely would recommend this app, as it is a fun tool to help students be creative and learn writing skills at the same time.
The Social Express $89.99
This app is actually an interactive software application designed for children with autism, Asperger’s, and ADHD, nonverbal learning disabilities, pragmatic language deficits or other social learning challenges. It helps users to become more socially competent and have successful social interactions. The app lists tons of potential benefits, including the ability to:
Dragon Dictation Free
This app does the opposite of the app above. It's a voice recognition app that lets you speak and instantly types what you say on your phone or ipad. It claims to be five times faster than typing on a keyboard. This can be great for students who have a hard time typing, especially when needing assignments or stories typed.
Obviously the best feature of this app is that it's free. One downside I can see of a app such as this is that it can become somewhat of a crutch and prevent students from practicing their keyboarding skills and speed, which improve mostly with practice. But if handwriting is difficult to decipher and typing is a challenge so much so that a student wouldn't do their homework, I think this is a great alternative and would recommend it.
Flashcards for iPad $3.99
StoryBuilder for IPad $7.99
This app helps students create a story using story lines that the app gives you. The app claims to targets picture description, word order, sentence formation, vocabulary, making predictions, cause/effect, pronouns, verb tense, and sequencing. It is designed to help children improve in paragraph formation, integration of ideas, and making higher level abstractions by inference. This app would be beneficial to students with special needs because it's like a story starter, a way to help students get started with writing a story, and to use their creativity to build on them.
I like that there are so many story lines to create stories from. I also like that students can record their own narrative with their own voice and also that they can email their stories. I don't like that the app costs money.
I definitely would recommend this app, as it is a fun tool to help students be creative and learn writing skills at the same time.
The Social Express $89.99
This app is actually an interactive software application designed for children with autism, Asperger’s, and ADHD, nonverbal learning disabilities, pragmatic language deficits or other social learning challenges. It helps users to become more socially competent and have successful social interactions. The app lists tons of potential benefits, including the ability to:
- ● Identify feelings in others
● Understand the importance of “eye contact” (thinking with your eyes) in order to figure out what to say or do in social situations
● Read non-verbal social cues
● Identify appropriate coping strategies
● Learn how to start conversations
● Learn how to be part of a group
● Learn about the hidden rules in social situations
● Sequence situations and infer what will come next
● Figure out what to talk about with friends
● Monitor when others are using appropriate social behaviors
● Learn about using figurative language (idioms) in conversation
● Stay on topic when having conversations
● Watch social situations unfold and see how behavior can have negative or positive consequences
I think it's cool that a student who needs practice in social situations can actually get that experience in a non-threatening matter like an app. I don't like that it's such an expensive app. However, I think it's worth it if it can help the student become better at making social interactions.
Speak it! Text to Speech $1.99
This is a simple text to speech app. You can copy emails, documents, web pages, PDF files, or any other text to the app and it will read it aloud for you. This is obviously beneficial for students with special needs if they have difficulty reading but want to "read" news articles or any other difficult text. One potential huge benefit is if they have textbooks for school online, so they can have their textbook read out loud to them and can focus on comprehension. It includes features:
• Easy to use interface: simply enter the text you want to say, and press the “Speak it! button
• Four high quality voices are included: American Male, American Female, British Male, British Female
• NEW! Highlights words as they are spoken
• Ability to create audio files and email them
• Save as many phrases as you would like, and easily repeat them later
• Pause and resume speech playback
• Change the volume, as well as the speed of spoken text
• Change the font size of the text field
• Speak it! Store, where you can download 20 new voices
• Designed to be used while on a phone call
• Localized for French, Italian, German, and Spanish
I like that it's a pretty inexpensive way to have things read out-loud. The thing I really don't like about it is that it doesn't read directly from the webpage or email page. You have to copy paste the text to the app in order for it to work. It would be so much cooler if you could just point to the text from any page and have it be read. Especially since there are so many sites, including flash sites, that don't allow copying text. But because it's so inexpensive, I would recommend it.
Speak it! Text to Speech $1.99
This is a simple text to speech app. You can copy emails, documents, web pages, PDF files, or any other text to the app and it will read it aloud for you. This is obviously beneficial for students with special needs if they have difficulty reading but want to "read" news articles or any other difficult text. One potential huge benefit is if they have textbooks for school online, so they can have their textbook read out loud to them and can focus on comprehension. It includes features:
• Easy to use interface: simply enter the text you want to say, and press the “Speak it! button
• Four high quality voices are included: American Male, American Female, British Male, British Female
• NEW! Highlights words as they are spoken
• Ability to create audio files and email them
• Save as many phrases as you would like, and easily repeat them later
• Pause and resume speech playback
• Change the volume, as well as the speed of spoken text
• Change the font size of the text field
• Speak it! Store, where you can download 20 new voices
• Designed to be used while on a phone call
• Localized for French, Italian, German, and Spanish
I like that it's a pretty inexpensive way to have things read out-loud. The thing I really don't like about it is that it doesn't read directly from the webpage or email page. You have to copy paste the text to the app in order for it to work. It would be so much cooler if you could just point to the text from any page and have it be read. Especially since there are so many sites, including flash sites, that don't allow copying text. But because it's so inexpensive, I would recommend it.
Dragon Dictation Free
This app does the opposite of the app above. It's a voice recognition app that lets you speak and instantly types what you say on your phone or ipad. It claims to be five times faster than typing on a keyboard. This can be great for students who have a hard time typing, especially when needing assignments or stories typed.
Obviously the best feature of this app is that it's free. One downside I can see of a app such as this is that it can become somewhat of a crutch and prevent students from practicing their keyboarding skills and speed, which improve mostly with practice. But if handwriting is difficult to decipher and typing is a challenge so much so that a student wouldn't do their homework, I think this is a great alternative and would recommend it.
Flashcards for iPad $3.99
This app is a collection of learning tools and games for preschoolers that help them to learn words. It's also for students for who English is a second language. There are language options for Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Italian. Some features are:
- Hundreds flashcards in various categories (Animals, Transport, Bodies, Alphabets, Numbers, Shapes and Colors) illustrated by hand
- Interactive and lovable animal characters
- Second Language Support - practice 2 languages at the same time! A great way for kids to start learning a new language and perfect for bilingual households!
- Ability to record your own sound files for any word or letter
- Hundreds of audio files, including words, sound effects, and musical themes produced by professional sound engineers, voice over artists and language experts.
- Simple Navigation for kids – Powerful settings and controls for parents; select display options, sound effects, languages, volume and more – and then lock the controls.
- Teaches kids how to pronounce letter sounds and recognize words while having fun at the same time.
I like this app because I can see myself using it with my two year old and four year old nephews. It's fun and seems like a game where kids can learn words and spellings at the same time. The two year old would enjoy identifying objects whereas the four year old can read the words under the images. There's nothing I don't like about this, except that I wish it had a free version with maybe a limited number of words so that everyone could try it out before buying. I would recommend it for anyone with young kids or who speaks English as a second language.
