App All Star: ChatterPix Kids

ChatterPix Kids is simple to use, fun and engaging app developed by Duck, Duck Moose.  The concept is fun, the app allows you to turn anything into a talking picture.  To begin, import or take a picture, draw a line on the picture, and record a message.  This process results in a video of the chosen image, delivering the recorded message. The completed video can be saved to the camera roll on the device for viewing.

Our team used this app much like I described in the Talking Tom post.  ChatterPix Kids is a great tool for simple social stories and reinforcing messages.  The power is in the image that is used, it can be tailored to the child's preferences.  For example, we had a student who was very interested in pirates.  This same student was struggling with walking in the halls, not always being first in line and keeping his hands to himself in the halls.  His teacher had tried some social stories and was having some success, but she decided to tap into the power of the pirate.  She imported a picture of a pirate and had her husband use his best pirate voice to record a scripted message.  The message included the student's name and some pirate vocabulary.  She played it for the student and he was delighted that the pirate was talking to him.  He took the pirate's advice very seriously and showed improvement in his ability to follow rules in the hallway.  He would often quote the pirate to remind others of the rules.  Another teacher delivered some social stories to a Disney obsessed student via Disney princesses and saw success.

Another possible application is using the app as a means for students to demonstrate what they have learned after a project is completed.  For example, after a study of animals that live in Minnesota, a student can choose a picture of an animal and record some simple facts about that animal, then play it for the class, and email to parents.  The app is free, download it and see what you can do with it!

ECSE App All Star: Photo Buttons

Photo Buttons by  Software Smoothie is a simple cause-effect app.  Touching the screen makes a colorful circle appear, tapping the circle reveals the picture and accompanying sound, tap the picture and it pops and disappears.  There are 21 backgrounds to choose from, with a black screen as an option.  The black screen with the colorful buttons offers nice contrast for children with visual impairments. The app comes with 54 sample buttons.  Under settings, you can select which images you want to appear.  You can create customized buttons by using the device’s camera or pulling an image from the camera roll.  You can also add a recording to the image.  Creating customized buttons was a quick and easy process once I figured out that when in landscape orientation, I had to scroll down to find the “save” button.  The app is child friendly in that it does not have any ads or in app purchases and to access the settings, you need to press and hold the icon.  A few features that would make this app even better would be the ability to organize the custom buttons and add an option to make the buttons bigger.  I also wonder how many custom buttons you can make.  I am not sure if there is a limit, I couldn't find any documentation about this on the support site.  

This app stands out from other cause/effect apps because it allows me to customize the images that are triggered by the touch.  So now I have an app option that builds visual discrimination skills, cause/effect skills, and functional vocabulary.  This app would be a good option for use with children learning English as a second language.  I can also see therapists and interventionists finding uses for this app in working on a variety of language and readiness concepts.  I look forward to hearing about how this app is being used in ECSE.  Here are a few app activity suggestions.  

Photo Buttons App Activity:  Color scavenger hunt:  Children really enjoy the novelty of popping the images and watching them disappear and going on scavenger hunts.  Create a custom scavenger hunt around targeted skills such colors.  Create buttons for a variety of colors and the numbers 1 through 5. Touch the screen until several numbers and colors are on the screen.  Students take turns choosing a number and color, finding that number of objects of the chosen color, and then popping the number and color to complete a turn.

Parent App Activity:  Nature scavenger hunt:  Encourage outdoor play and exploration by using the same method as above to create custom buttons of things in the your yard and outdoor areas.  Help your child find and talk about the items before popping the image and making it disappear.  

ECSE App All Star: Breathe Think Do With Sesame

Not all children who are referred to and evaluated by our team meet the criteria for special education services.   These children were referred because they are struggling with some aspect of development and their parents are often searching for resources and support. I collect parent friendly resources on a variety of child development topics to offer these parents.  Because we evaluate infants, toddlers and preschoolers, self regulation skills are frequently a topic of discussion and concern.  When I found Breathe Think Do With Sesame, in the app store, I knew that I had found a resource to add to my Self Regulation resource list. I plan to share this app with parents, our Occupational Therapy team and Early Childhood Special Educators.  This app is a great addition to our social emotional skills toolbox.  Currently the app is free.    

The app serves two purposes.  It educates parents and caregivers about self regulation skills and it provides opportunities for children to practice the skills in a structured but engaging way.  The Parent section provides tips and strategies for several challenging issues such as separation, persistence and aggression.  This section begins with an explanation of why self regulation skills are important and provides a script of what parents can say to children who are experiencing difficulties in this area.  Finally, a specific strategy in each area is given.  In the aggression section, the strategy provided is tracing a child’s hand and helping him think of 5 gentle things he can do with his hands so he can think of that next time he is upset.  Some of the sections include video clips.  A theme throughout the tips and strategies section is the framework of breathing, planning and doing. In the settings, the app has a personalization option.  Children are prompted to say phrases that will be repeated throughout the activities such as “think of a plan”.  The language can be changed from English to Spanish in the Settings area.  

The child section has 5 activities and features a monster. Each activity starts with animation showing the monster struggling with a challenging issue.  The issues are getting on his shoes, separating from his mother, a tower of blocks that falls, waiting to use the slide on the playground, and being fearful of the dark at bedtime.  After the introduction the screen changes to the monster surrounded by red and looking anxious, upset and/or mad.  The narrator encourages the child to tap the screen to help the monster take 3 breaths through his nose and out his mouth.  The background color changes from red to blue as the narrator talks about the monster getting calmer.  

Next, the narrator prompts the child to pop bubbles to make the monster think of a plan. The monster thinks of 3 options for a plan.  The child gets to choose which plan the monster will use and watch the result.  Self regulation vocabulary, such as calm, frustrated, relaxed, and anxious are used throughout the activities.  

This app is one of many resources Sesame Street offers in the Little Children, Big Challenges toolkit.  I have bookmarked several resources from the toolkit to share with parents.  Do you have any other apps you recommend for teaching and/or practicing self regulation skills? 

Engaging apps for Scribbling and Drawing

Today I am highlighting 2 apps that I would recommend to pediatric Occupational Therapists, parents and teachers of young children, and early intervention providers.  Lazoo offers two apps (currently free) that will get your most reluctant drawers and scribblers motivated to join in the fun. The apps are so engaging, I found myself wanting to try out each scene, looking forward to the animation on each page. The developers were creative in giving a purpose to the doodles and scribbles.

There is a parent section available, which as you know, earns an app bonus points in my book.  The parent section encourages parents to let their child engage in open ended play.  Parents are encouraged to comment on the drawings and examples of questions that can spark some conversations are provided.  Collaboration, creativity, and the process are emphasized.  Here is a quick description of each app.

Let's Color
The app offers over 25 different scenes.  Each scene has a written question or prompt that is read aloud as each word is highlighted.  For the example below the prompt is "These kids are playing in the mud, make it messy!".  The prompt is only read once and there does not appear to be a way to have it repeated.  There are 5 tools available to produce the drawings and there are also stickers for added embellishment. Once the masterpiece is created, the child hits the "GO!" button and watches as her artwork becomes part of the animation. Several of the scenes promote collaboration and imitation by providing more than one image so a parent, teacher or peer can work on one and the child can work on the other.  For example, in one scene the child is prompted to draw hair on a figure and there are 2 figures.

Completed picture from Lazoo's Let's Color app.

Squiggles!

This app has several features in common with Let's Color. A friendly voice provides a prompt such as "Draw a squiggly mane to turn this kitty into a lion." In some scenes there is more than one image so a team can collaborate and imitate. The tools and the stickers are the same.  This app is different in that it provides a prompt in the form of a model of producing squiggles in the intended area and there are fewer scenes.

Completed picture from Lazoo's Squiggles! app. 

Give these apps a try and enjoy the process!

Story retelling with Explain Everything app

Story retelling is a key strategy in promoting early literacy skills in young learners.  Story retelling supports language development, increased comprehension and encourages a deeper understanding of the language structure of books.  It provides opportunities to practice sequencing and use new vocabulary.  Research suggests that story retelling is more effective than teacher questioning in increasing comprehension.  The Minnesota Early Childhood Indicators of Progress include two related indicators, retelling information from a story and representing stories told or read aloud through various media during play.  

There are various strategies for story retelling.  Using props or toys related to the story, using sequencing cards, role playing and acting out stories are some of the strategies that are effective.  This post highlights the use of an app as another strategy for retelling stories.  The app is Explain Everything and it is one of the apps I think every teacher should have on the iPad.  It is versatile, easy to use and affordable.  It is my "go to" whiteboard app because of one particular tool, the free select cropping tool.  This tool essentially allows you to create stickers/props that can be manipulated to retell the story.  Think of it as technology’s version of flannelboard stories or tongue depressor props and the best part is the animated video can be shared with others.    

Here is a quick explanation of the process I used.   I went to the site, Kizclub to get the visuals.  Under "Stories and Props" there are visuals for many of my favorite books.  I saved the PDF’s to Dropbox in a shared file folder so that other teachers can access them.  I reviewed the PDF guide for Explain Everything and went to work.  Here is a link to the PDF guide for your reference. In order to use the free select tool I took screenshots of each page of the PDF so I could edit the photo.   I took a screenshot by pressing the home button and power button at the same time. I opened a new presentation in Explain Everything.  

I selected the insert image icon and chose “Existing Photo/Video”.  I found the screenshot in the camera roll and selected it.  Next, I chose the free select tool and outlined the image I wanted and selected done.  I repeated this process until I had  all of the props on the slide.  In the example, I created a second slide with the images of the characters in “wake up” mode.  

The next step is to record the child retelling the story and manipulating the props.  The finished product can be sent to You Tube for sharing or can be viewed on the iPad.  

Here is the example using the Napping House props.  I read the story with Olivia and then we went through the book again and looked at the pictures more closely.  I had printed out the props and taped them onto blocks.  She stacked the blocks in the order of the story as I retold the story without the book.  I presented the app and told her that it was her turn to tell the story.  She was somewhat shy about being recorded so I provided some support and prompting.   

In this second example, we personalized the experience.  I took a picture of Olivia in a sleeping position and we removed Granny and put Olivia in the story.  She asked me to tell the story, so I did, but she couldn’t resist joining in, it is a great example of how technology can be socially engaging and promote cooperation and interaction.  She liked this version of the story even more! Next time I would have her draw a house and a bed with the drawing tool.  What story are you going to try?  

Creating Instructional Materials with Tiny Tap

Tiny Tap is an app that can be used by therapists, teachers and parents to create instructional materials for targeted practice of a variety of skills.  Users can create a game based page or book using photos or drawings.  Photos can be taken with the iPad camera or imported from the camera roll.  Also, drawings can be created within the app using drawing tools and stickers.   I created the picture scene below with the app, Felt Board.  I took a picture of the completed scene which was then saved to my camera roll.

The app is very user friendly but I will provide a few tips that might keep you from getting stuck.  Using this picture, I recorded my first question/statement: "Let's play a guessing game, I am thinking of an animal, it has whiskers, pointed ears and says Meow".  After recording the statement or question, you are prompted to trace around the correct answer.  When done tracing, tap on the question you finished and you will see a menu like the one pictured below.  

From this menu you can customize the experience by providing individualized feedback for the student.  You can add a response for the correct answer such as, "yes, you found the cat, it has whiskers, pointy ears and says, meow".  You can also add a response for the incorrect answer such as, "oops, that is not the cat, try again".  If you don't customize these responses, the app inserts various sound effects such as laughing, cheering and a buzzer noise.  Another helpful tip I can provide is related to the background music.  The music made it difficult to hear the prompts and it could be distracting for some students.  You have the option of turning off the music.  When you are on the screen pictured below, tap the cassette tape icon in the upper right hand corner, scroll down and select, "no music".  

Here is an example of a page I created using the app, Strip Designer.  I imported this photo into Tiny Tap and asked questions related to functions of the objects.  

Tiny Tap provides some supports to the learners during game play that can be helpful for learners with special needs.  If the student picks the wrong object several times in a row, the correct object is highlighted and the prompt is repeated.  There is also a replay button that can be selected and the prompt will be repeated.  The drawback of this app is the sharing options.  Games can only be shared through Facebook.  It would be nice to be able to share games with other Tiny Tap users via email.  

Tiny Tap has many possibilities for supporting learners who need targeted practice of skills.  Tha app could be used to target language objectives, ELL related objectives, math concepts, and of course literacy objectives.  Although I have not tried it, the app seems like it would be simple enough for a young learner to use with some support from an adult.  I would like to try having a student take a picture of a scene, create a game by giving clues and have other students play the game he or she created.  Has anyone had young learners create a game or book using this app?  How did it go? 

ECSE App All Star: Book Creator

 Recently, I have been asked to make recommendations regarding digital storytelling apps.  I am finally feeling like I have had enough experience with a variety of apps that I can make better informed suggestions. In this post, I will focus on teacher created stories and the app, Book Creator.  Special Education teachers create books for many purposes including social stories, vocabulary development, and targeted literacy instruction. In the past, creating customized books was very time consuming and involved scissors, glue, copying, laminating and binding.  Technology has made this task much less daunting.

The combination of two features, the ability to add audio and the sharing options, make Book Creator a very useful app. Book Creator works well if you are using 1-2 photos per page and need to have audio.  The audio feature is a necessity with young learners who can't read independently.  The sharing options are more extensive than many other digital storytelling apps.  The finished product is an epub file.  If a student is going to be accessing the book on the iPad, the book can be opened in iBooks and the audio remains.  If you need to share the book so it can be accessed on a device other than the iPad on which it was created, you can open the file in Dropbox.  Once I had the file in Dropbox, I pulled it onto my desktop.  I ran into a road block when I tried to open the file on my computer because I didn't have anything installed that could read epub files.  My next step was to  download the Chrome Extension, Readium.  Once the file was in Readium, it opened and the audio remained. You could put the file in a shared folder on Dropbox and make it available to other teachers.  There is also an option to email the file  as an iBook or as a PDF, which would work well for sharing the support with parents.  If a hard copy of the book is needed, there is an option to print.

Book created with Book Creator on iPad, opened in Readium.

I highly recommend Book Creator for the purpose of making materials to support students with special needs.  It is easy enough that it can also be used by young learners to create their own books.  Here are some ideas of instructional materials that could be made using this app:
Preschoolers
Create social stories:  how to stand in line, how to ask a friend to play, how to cope with setbacks.
Create customized books with targeted vocabulary.
Create books to support speech/language goals such as functions, classification, and opposites.
Create visual schedules and sequence boards.
Toddlers/Home based
Create customized books of family members.
Create books with targeted household vocabulary.
Create books with audio from a family member who may not be available to read in person such as a grandparent or a parent in the military.
Create customized books dealing with situations that may create anxiety such as separation from a parent at child care.
Create a book preparing a toddler for a new experience such as a visit to the doctor.
Create a book from the child's point of view about sensory challenges to share with other family members.

Are you special educator using digital storytelling tools to create instructional materials?  What apps have you found useful?  What types of materials are you creating?

   



 

ECSE App All Star: Alien Assignment

The Fred Rogers Center developed this scavenger hunt type app and it is one of their best yet. The child is introduced to a cute (non threatening), group of aliens who have a broken ship.  The child is asked to take pictures of objects that can be readily found in the environment in order to help repair the ship.  The aliens describe what is broken, using some great vocabulary concepts in their description.  In some cases, the request is a label such as "find a doorknob" or the request is a related to a concept such as "find something heavy".  The child is asked to take 4 pictures.  The only thing I would change is adding the ability to repeat the prompt because several times the child forgot the prompt as they were walking around the room searching.   

The windshield is broken, find something you can see through.

When the child has taken all of the pictures, he is prompted to give the phone to an adult.  This app gets bonus points for including caregivers in the activity, it is a great app for playing together.  The adult's job is to review the pictures, selecting a thumbs up if the picture matches the request.  If a thumbs down is given, the prompt is repeated and another picture can be taken.   When all of the pictures pass adult inspection, the aliens review the repairs and thank the child for the assistance. This app is useful in Early Childhood Special Education and speech therapy because many of the concepts presented are common targeted concepts in the area of receptive communication skills.  I also appreciate that the app gets kids up and moving, engaging that brain and connecting the real world to the virutal world!  It is also an opportunity to practice recall.  At the end of the activity you can work with the child on recalling  the 4 prompts and pictures. The pictures are not saved to the camera roll so the adult needs to practice some recall skills too.  At the end of the activity you could also do a drawing activity, encouraging the child to draw a picture of one of the objects they photographed, or draw a picture of the aliens.   This app could also be used with parents on home visits.  An early intervention teacher could model the use of this app, demonstrating all of the opportunities it provides for working on a variety of skills. Many thanks to the Fred Rogers Center for this app.  

The compass is broke, help by finding something that points!