Post by DonnaRE on Nov 14, 2014 15:51:09 GMT
Just found this by Erin Sheldon on Facebook. It's a really fantastic list of "must-have" apps for literacy. Please feel free to add to it below!
These are my must-have apps:
Pictello: story telling app that exports as fabulous PDFs and makes beautiful oral presentation support; highest quality text-to-speech (TTS) support with the same voices used in high-quality AAC apps; text highlighting; easy to use and create books; robust app with strong technical support. Also permits easy sharing of books and embedded video on each page. Nice feature: if you videotape while writing a book, the video is also backed up in your camera roll.
Explain Everything: screen casting app that allows you to make a video from any visual support such as a PDF, photo, Keynote or PowerPoint slideshow, etc. Narrate anything with tools such as a laser pointer, text boxes, on-screen pen/pencil, etc, then capture it as video. For kids who are drawn to video (often due to underlying vision issues such as CVI or attention issues), this app is priceless. But its actually ridiculously cheap. Has a free iTunes book to walk you through how to use it.
Word Wizard: gives kids access to the full alphabet along with voice output of the letter names and sounds and words they write. Great tool for scribbling. Available in about half a dozen languages. We use it with the letters in QWERTY order along with "phonics" enabled so that letter sounds (rather than letter names) are offered in voice output. Great app to make it sound funny when you tell your teenager to get off the couch and go load the dishwasher.
Abilipad: allows parents and educators to create alternative keyboards for students to type with. Keys on the keyboard can include photos, can be very large to provide an easier target, etc. The child can have multiple keyboards in one document or can have keyboards on multiple pages. The page the child can write on supports having a photo on each page to set the context/topic the child will write about. Strong TTS, word prediction, and spellcheck. Allows kids to hear what they wrote and learn to self-correct. Exports fairly well. Allows students to explore word families with specialized keyboards, etc.
Kid in Story: such a fun app. Take a picture of your kid, use the app to cut him or her out, then insert your child into the pages of the book. Or take their favourite character or person (big sister? Harry Stiles? Barney?) and insert them on any page of a book. The page of the book can be any photo in your camera roll, which can be any image you've found on the web or anything you have as a PDF such as a PowerPoint or Pictello story. Send Harry Stiles back in time so he's in the audience when Martin Luther King gives his "I have a dream" speech. Send Barney through the human circulatory system. Put your child on the top of the pyramids at Giza and under a whale or shark to illustrate prepositions. Insert Dora the Explorer into your class or family photo. If you have trouble engaging your child in reading, see if it helps to put your child and other loved ones into the pages of the book. Record audio over every page. Or export the story to Explain Everything and make a movie out of it. Then import the story into Go Talk NOW. (See how incestuous my favourite apps are? They all go together.)
Go Talk NOW: gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous multi-media app that allows you to create almost any combination or sequence of symbols, photos, words, videos, and on-screen keyboard with high-quality AAC voices and TTS. Its simply a beautiful app for assisting with conversation in ways such as telling a story by showing a video. SymbolStix (the symbols used in Proloquo2Go and TouchChat, amongst others) are available as an in-app purchase. If your child loves video or can only make very broad movements on the iPad screen (such as using the whole hand to touch the screen), this app is extraordinary in terms of what it can do. I have yet to find a kid with AS who, when I have set up a sequence of something they love, hasn't gone ballistic when they see the related video that we can include in the sequence that tells the story. I don't like to characterize this app as an AAC app but I simply love love love it and it can serve many of the purposes of an AAC app. For example, this app lets you take a family photo and have each family member record their own message over their portion of the photo and then link personalized video to that message; lets students use symbols and words and texts to tell a story that leads to video; lets you import book pages and record audio over the text on the story; lets you make a digital word wall with videos related to the word wall words; and so much more. The most important purpose of this app for Maggie is that it lets us create and organize multi-media learning materials for her. For example, when Maggie was clearly trying to understand her own epilepsy, I created a book for her in GTN where she could see videos of scientists explaining what the brain does during a seizure; videos of her own seizures; videos of friends describing their own seizures; etc. I think of this as a tool for learning and conversation more than for communication. This app is meant to support conversation but I feel it also supports Maggie to have conversations with herself by letting us combine her millions of photos and videos into a coherent system and adding language to them. If apps were children, this one would be my golden child.
These are my honourable mentions:
Popplet: Mind mapping app. Lets brainstorm about Egypt: words that start with "C" include Cleopatra and canopic jar. So you have Egypt in the centre with C branching off and Cleopatra and canonic jar branching off the C. Include a photo on each cell. Words for "S" that we studied with Egypt include sarcophagus. Ditto. Now, import the Popplet into Go Talk NOW and include video of the sarcophagus you saw at the museum. Another option: start with the word "family" in the centre of the Popplet, then branch off with "s" for Sister, and branch sisters off from there. Or "C" for Catie" and branch off "C" names from there.
Keynote: this is like PowerPoint for the iPad. Combine photos, videos, text, and shapes. Make a presentation that you annotate and turn into a video in Explain Everything. Import PowerPoint presentations on to your iPad, then edit them as needed. Maggie likes to import lots of video and loves editing my presentations to surprise me just before I go to present...
Pages: like Word for the iPad. Supports video, photos, and text on the page. Immediately opens a keyboard as soon as you touch anywhere on the screen.
Mini Adventures apps are alphabetized displays of letters, words, and videos on a specific topic. In the music app, A is for accordion, acid jazz, acoustic guitar, african drum, afrobeat, agogo bell, alphorn, and autoharp. Select any of these and watch linked YouTube videos demonstrating each one. Hear the instrument name, see great visuals, plus video! Totally age-respectful while introducing basic alphabet knowledge.
Big Button Box apps: like having 100 obnoxious Big Mack buttons all arranged in an app. You can re-arrange the order. Have hilarious messages and sound effects easily available. Give your child the ability to say "OMG" in a dramatic tone of voice, "crazy" in a sarcastic one, "busted" in a sing-song voice to her sibling, and "you're fired" in an authoritative one. Just a really fun way to explore single-message phrases taken from popular culture.
These are my must-have apps:
Pictello: story telling app that exports as fabulous PDFs and makes beautiful oral presentation support; highest quality text-to-speech (TTS) support with the same voices used in high-quality AAC apps; text highlighting; easy to use and create books; robust app with strong technical support. Also permits easy sharing of books and embedded video on each page. Nice feature: if you videotape while writing a book, the video is also backed up in your camera roll.
Explain Everything: screen casting app that allows you to make a video from any visual support such as a PDF, photo, Keynote or PowerPoint slideshow, etc. Narrate anything with tools such as a laser pointer, text boxes, on-screen pen/pencil, etc, then capture it as video. For kids who are drawn to video (often due to underlying vision issues such as CVI or attention issues), this app is priceless. But its actually ridiculously cheap. Has a free iTunes book to walk you through how to use it.
Word Wizard: gives kids access to the full alphabet along with voice output of the letter names and sounds and words they write. Great tool for scribbling. Available in about half a dozen languages. We use it with the letters in QWERTY order along with "phonics" enabled so that letter sounds (rather than letter names) are offered in voice output. Great app to make it sound funny when you tell your teenager to get off the couch and go load the dishwasher.
Abilipad: allows parents and educators to create alternative keyboards for students to type with. Keys on the keyboard can include photos, can be very large to provide an easier target, etc. The child can have multiple keyboards in one document or can have keyboards on multiple pages. The page the child can write on supports having a photo on each page to set the context/topic the child will write about. Strong TTS, word prediction, and spellcheck. Allows kids to hear what they wrote and learn to self-correct. Exports fairly well. Allows students to explore word families with specialized keyboards, etc.
Kid in Story: such a fun app. Take a picture of your kid, use the app to cut him or her out, then insert your child into the pages of the book. Or take their favourite character or person (big sister? Harry Stiles? Barney?) and insert them on any page of a book. The page of the book can be any photo in your camera roll, which can be any image you've found on the web or anything you have as a PDF such as a PowerPoint or Pictello story. Send Harry Stiles back in time so he's in the audience when Martin Luther King gives his "I have a dream" speech. Send Barney through the human circulatory system. Put your child on the top of the pyramids at Giza and under a whale or shark to illustrate prepositions. Insert Dora the Explorer into your class or family photo. If you have trouble engaging your child in reading, see if it helps to put your child and other loved ones into the pages of the book. Record audio over every page. Or export the story to Explain Everything and make a movie out of it. Then import the story into Go Talk NOW. (See how incestuous my favourite apps are? They all go together.)
Go Talk NOW: gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous multi-media app that allows you to create almost any combination or sequence of symbols, photos, words, videos, and on-screen keyboard with high-quality AAC voices and TTS. Its simply a beautiful app for assisting with conversation in ways such as telling a story by showing a video. SymbolStix (the symbols used in Proloquo2Go and TouchChat, amongst others) are available as an in-app purchase. If your child loves video or can only make very broad movements on the iPad screen (such as using the whole hand to touch the screen), this app is extraordinary in terms of what it can do. I have yet to find a kid with AS who, when I have set up a sequence of something they love, hasn't gone ballistic when they see the related video that we can include in the sequence that tells the story. I don't like to characterize this app as an AAC app but I simply love love love it and it can serve many of the purposes of an AAC app. For example, this app lets you take a family photo and have each family member record their own message over their portion of the photo and then link personalized video to that message; lets students use symbols and words and texts to tell a story that leads to video; lets you import book pages and record audio over the text on the story; lets you make a digital word wall with videos related to the word wall words; and so much more. The most important purpose of this app for Maggie is that it lets us create and organize multi-media learning materials for her. For example, when Maggie was clearly trying to understand her own epilepsy, I created a book for her in GTN where she could see videos of scientists explaining what the brain does during a seizure; videos of her own seizures; videos of friends describing their own seizures; etc. I think of this as a tool for learning and conversation more than for communication. This app is meant to support conversation but I feel it also supports Maggie to have conversations with herself by letting us combine her millions of photos and videos into a coherent system and adding language to them. If apps were children, this one would be my golden child.
These are my honourable mentions:
Popplet: Mind mapping app. Lets brainstorm about Egypt: words that start with "C" include Cleopatra and canopic jar. So you have Egypt in the centre with C branching off and Cleopatra and canonic jar branching off the C. Include a photo on each cell. Words for "S" that we studied with Egypt include sarcophagus. Ditto. Now, import the Popplet into Go Talk NOW and include video of the sarcophagus you saw at the museum. Another option: start with the word "family" in the centre of the Popplet, then branch off with "s" for Sister, and branch sisters off from there. Or "C" for Catie" and branch off "C" names from there.
Keynote: this is like PowerPoint for the iPad. Combine photos, videos, text, and shapes. Make a presentation that you annotate and turn into a video in Explain Everything. Import PowerPoint presentations on to your iPad, then edit them as needed. Maggie likes to import lots of video and loves editing my presentations to surprise me just before I go to present...
Pages: like Word for the iPad. Supports video, photos, and text on the page. Immediately opens a keyboard as soon as you touch anywhere on the screen.
Mini Adventures apps are alphabetized displays of letters, words, and videos on a specific topic. In the music app, A is for accordion, acid jazz, acoustic guitar, african drum, afrobeat, agogo bell, alphorn, and autoharp. Select any of these and watch linked YouTube videos demonstrating each one. Hear the instrument name, see great visuals, plus video! Totally age-respectful while introducing basic alphabet knowledge.
Big Button Box apps: like having 100 obnoxious Big Mack buttons all arranged in an app. You can re-arrange the order. Have hilarious messages and sound effects easily available. Give your child the ability to say "OMG" in a dramatic tone of voice, "crazy" in a sarcastic one, "busted" in a sing-song voice to her sibling, and "you're fired" in an authoritative one. Just a really fun way to explore single-message phrases taken from popular culture.