Sharing Night and a Great New App

-->

Sharing time tonight! Each of the groups responded to a case study in which we were to devise a communication board using Proloqu2Go for a student with communication challenges. Barb’s assignment clearly outlined the requirements for the communication boards and I really think we all did a great job of devising our boards. It was interesting to see the commonalities of the boards-needs, wants, and emotions with a dash of good manners tossed in. Ann and I placed the student in our school and we worked within the confines and structures available to us. The pre-planning phase was extremely important as we tried to identify what the needs of the student would be and how we could best meet them with Proloqu2Go. We especially needed to consider the child’s ability to work with short-term memory to create these boards so that the student would be able to locate the boards needed for communication at specific times. Interesting to see how we considered voice. Some considered an older voice to encourage the student to feel part of a maturing group while others used a younger voice to more accurately reflect what we might think the student’s voice would sound like. In a school-based situation you would have a number of factors working in your favour: more in-depth knowledge of the student and his comfortability with the communication device, input from peers, family members and staff, pictures of actual places like the cafeteria or playground and the activities going on in those areas which would be part of his communication plan. Working with the SLP, parents, student and teachers to set up the initial set of boards, it would be very important to be constantly reviewing the communication needs of the student. Helping him or her to be able to devise his own communication boards would be important as we help the student move towards a higher level of independence. Responding to his/her needs, along with those of the other players, demonstrates that these boards are living documents that are designed for a very clear purpose: efficient and effective two-way communication.

While we waited for the last group to Skype in (my first experience with this little piece of technology), Barb introduced to the Bookcreator app. Now, this was fun. Students are able to create their own iBooks on selected topics, read these books on the iPad, mail them to friends or publish them to the iBookstore. This a very student friendly app which allows writers to import pictures, video clips, music and to create books based on their interests and learning requirements. I worked on a Remembrance Day book and with minutes had created a cover page with information about Remembrance Day, a page with In Flanders Fields in text with an imbedded musical selection of the same poem purchased from iTunes, and pictures of veterans which could be replaced with pictures of local veterans using the camera in the iPad.  Due to the capability of the app a students could record an interview with a veteran, edit it and included it in their books. The voice to text capability would allow the students to capture richer and lengthier conversations with the veterans and allow them to share their stories without too many interruptions. You can also manipulate the font, size, characteristics, colour and background to meet the needs of the writer and/or reader. This is such an easy app to use. Keeping in mind the nature of assistive technology, this is definitely a keeper and is certainly a move towards 21^st century learning.

To see the Bookcreator app in action, check out this Youtube video. Start creating today.