New Apps for Students with Learning Disabilities
- 1. New Apps in Action for LD: Enhancing Input and Output. EDUC 5163 P4 Karen Dumay dumay7@gmail.com Emily Gabriel egabriel@staff.ednet.ns.ca Mary MacDonald marmacdo@staff.ednet.ns.ca Melanie O’Leary moleary31@yahoo.com
- 2. Learning Disabilities refer to a variety of disorders that Learning affect the acquisition, retention, understanding or use of verbal and/or non-verbal information. These disorders Disabilities result from impairments in one or more psychological processes related to “learning” in combination with otherwise average abilities essential for thinking and reasoning. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=VdIyC48iXEY Learning disabilities range in severity, interfere with acquisition and use of one or more of the following skills: • Oral language (eg., listening, speaking, understanding). • Reading (e.g., decoding, comprehension) • Written language (e.g., spelling, written expression) • Mathematics (Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario, 2001 )
- 3. New Apps in Action for LD: Enhancing Input and Output. Emily – Reading Comprehension Karen – 7 Notes Premium Mary – Tools4Students Melanie – AppWriter US
- 4. Reading Comprehension $1.99 Different levels of reading for students Can use it for reading groups as well. Speech selection works with this ◦ Makes it especially useful for students who may have difficulty reading independently. Use it as an assessment tool. Versatile, lots of different subjects.
- 5. Mastering Sight Words Teaching sight words in context and through repetition App maximizes word exposure Level 1 and Level 2
- 6. 7 Notes Premium By: 7knowledge International Corporation Technology is here to stay. However, it is not present in all of Nova Scotia schools. The traditional way of teaching (pen, paper and heavy textbooks) is not meeting the needs of all learners. Students regardless of their learning abilities need to have the chance to be successful in their learning. This APP can be downloaded on one’s iPod at a minimum cost of $4.99 or on one’s iPad for $8.99.
- 7. Strengths Weaknesses - Word prediction - Does not have text to - Spell Check speech - Edit text - Cannot transfer data from - Add visuals Word document - Stylus (optional) LD students who have limited writing skills will benefit a great deal from using the 7 Notes Premium. The App can help LD students keep up with note taking while allowing them to add some visual aids. The more personalized students’ notes are the easier it is to review them at a later date. Students with severe LD will need assistance using this App as it requires some prior knowledge/skills: 1) Research skills 2) Effective Grammar skills (sentence structure) 3) Dexterity (need to use stylus or finger)
- 8. • Tools 4 Students is an incredibly useful iPad App. • Supports students written output. • 25 different editable graphic organisers to organise students thinking and comprehend new information. • Supports organization, story preplanning by covering 99¢ common comprehension skills: cause /effect, main idea/detail, sequence events, pro/con, story elements, characterization, word meaning, plot, KWL and much more. • Students can save their work on their iPad, or email completed organisers to their teacher, who can share them via Google Docs, or print them off. • Can be projected onto an whiteboard for whole-class demonstrations and activities. • This App doesn’t require the WiFi to work.
- 10. Features of AppWriter US • Only for iPad with i0S5 AppWriter US • Costs $19.99 (but well worth the money). • Supports both reading (input) and writing (output) through: Below is a demonstration showing many of the features offered. 1. Text to speech http://www.youtube.com/ 2. Best to date word prediction supports watch?v=KEi0l5Tyrfk students with 3. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – scan text and make it machine readable Below is a demonstration showing how supports the feature Dyslexie works. 4. Highlights text as reads aloud http://www.joachim- 5. Special dyslexie font scholz.com/academipad/ 6. Can email, send to drop box and import 2012/05/09/appwriter- into an APP learning-disabilities/
- 11. AppWriter Us supports students with: •ADD, • ADHD, •Asperger’s Syndrome, •Central Auditory Processing Disorder (would need to use ear buds), •Dysgraphia, •Dyslexia, •Dyspraxia, •Visual Discrimination, •Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination, •Visual Memory, •Visual Motor Processing, •Visual Spatial Difficulties •Visual Sequencing.