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!

Snowballs, embroidery hoops and the app, Faces iMake

Blizzard conditions, low of -19 degrees tomorrow morning, school closed tomorrow, likely late or closed on Tuesday, our crazy winter continues.  Perfect conditions for another winter related post.  Snowballs by Lois Ehlert is a favorite winter read for preschool teachers.  In this post, I share a few extension activities.

A traditional follow up activity to the book is an art project where children use various materials to create a collage of a snow creature similar to the book.  I loved displaying these creations, each one so unique and reflecting each student's ideas and personality.  I wanted to extend this activity by using loose parts that can be arranged and rearranged at a center. During a family gathering, my nephews and neice scoured the kitchen, junk drawer, art cabinet, toy box and yard for materials, added a few embroidery hoops and white paper, then went to work.  Different sizes of hoops were used so size concepts were discussed.  Following the theme of the book, the kids created snow moms, snow dads, snow babies and snow animals.  We took pictures of each creation and planned to create a digital book, retelling the story, but we didn't get that done.  It was acutally nice out so we went outside and played in the snow instead!

The second extension involves a "go to App" on my iPad, Faces iMake.  It is a great creative outlet and is a perfect match for the Snowballs theme.  Kids can create snow people and snow animals using a variety of vocabulary building props available on the app.  The app can be customized by using the camera option.  Pictures can be imported from the camera roll or taken with the camera.  Using a pencil eraser, the object can be cropped from the background and used in the collage. It is easy to resize and rotate objects, and objects can be locked and moved to the front or back.  Once again, the children can take pictures of their creations to share with others.  I enjoyed the video tutorials available on the app as well.  This app offers great features for the price and promotes creativity and vocabulary building.  For those of you in my region, stay warm, stay safe and think Spring!

Mitten matching on Explain Everything

People in Minnesota are using the term “stupid cold” to describe the weather we will be experiencing over the next 2 days.  Tomorrow’s forecast is a high of -18 degrees, low of -28 degrees, with wind chills of 50 below zero.  Our state will experience over 60 hours of below zero temperatures.  On Friday, the Governor closed schools statewide for Monday.  It is cold.  I thought it would be appropriate to put together a post about a mitten matching activity I created using Explain Everything.  My previous post on using Explain Everything for story retelling gives more details about how to use the app. 

When I had a classroom, I offered a mitten matching activity using a clothesline, clothespins and children’s mittens.  It was great fine motor practice.  I usually had some students who struggled with the fine motor aspect of using a clothespin, so I adapted the clothespins, had an alternative  clothesline with velcro, and sometimes had the student match the mittens by pairing them on the table or floor rather than hang them.  This iPad activity would be yet another alternative for accessing this type of activity.  A fun variation of this activity would be to take pictures of your students' mittens and use those as the matching items. 

This video was created using the app Explain Everything and gives a brief overview of how I created the activity.  

I drew the clothesline using the writing tool.  I found the images on Google and saved the images to my camera roll.  I pulled the images into the slide and used the lasso cropping tool to crop the images out of the background.  I locked the clothesline and the mittens hanging on the line.  I locked the scale of the the mittens that will be manipulated by the students.  The locking function is activated by tapping square with an i on the left hand side, then tapping the object.  Everyone stay warm and stay safe. 

Tapping the information icon brings up this menu which includes the lock function. 

ECSE and Early Intervention: Welcome To Twitter!

I have been active on Twitter for several years.   It has taken some time, but I have found a network and community of inspiring early childhood educators, special educators and related service providers (Occupational Therapists, Speech Therapists and Physical Therapists).  While I have had a difficult time finding Early Childhood Special Educators and Early Intervention teachers or specialists, this seems to be changing.  In the last 2 weeks, I have added more and more people who have a background in Early Childhood Special Education and/or Early Intervention to my “following” list.  When they join, I want to be supportive and personally welcome each of them, but I have so much to say I can’t get it done in 140 characters.  Instead, I thought I would write a welcome letter and invite them to read it. 

Dear Early Childhood Special Education/Early Intervention provider,

     Welcome to Twitter.  I am glad you are here.  I have been anxious to connect with professionals from our profession and it has been difficult to find you!  My PLN has been a great support for me and Twitter is where I connect with them. Twitter is my primary source of professional development.  I hope you find it as useful of a tool as I have.  There are many established communities of professionals in the Twittersphere.  My goal is to build a community of ECSE and Early Intervention professionals on Twitter.  There are a few things we can do to make it easier for us to connect with one another so that we can maximize the Twitter experience. I know many of you are new to Twitter so I am going to offer a few general tips.  

     Let’s start with who to follow.  If you are interested in finding more professionals in our field, “Lists” are helpful.  Many Twitter users create Lists of people who are similar in some manner.  I have a List of ECSE professionals, Related Service professionals (speech, OT, PT), and Assistive Technology tweeters.  You are welcome to access my lists and see if you can find some new people to follow.  You find a person’s lists under their profile.  Another way to find someone to follow, is to look at who other ECSE professionals are following, also found under their profile.  

     The next useful tool is hashtags.  Hashtags make information searchable, allowing users to find information specific to a topic such as Early Childhood Special Education.  Hashtags are the little # symbol, formerly known as the number sign, that you see inserted in tweets.  These hashtags, while sometimes annoying in popular culture today, do serve a purpose.  Give it a try, try searching #earlyedsped.  If you are using Twitter, put the hashtag in the search field and the stream will appear.  Another tip is to consider using an app such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.  These programs allow you to organize Twitter feeds by hashtags, lists and users.  

     There are a few other hashtags to consider.  Hashtags tend to evolve, new ones appear based on campaigns and new interests.  Keep your eyes open for hashtags that are commonly used by those who tweet in the early childhood world.  We are an interesting field because we have one foot in the Early Childhood world and one in the Special Education world.  We can learn from and contribute to both fields.  Therefore, I follow many Early Childhood hashtags such as #kinderchat, #ece, #earlyed, #b25, #prek, #preemies, and #ecechat.  On the Sped side, I follow hashtags such as #spedchat, #atchat, #autism, #spedplc, #inclusion and #slpeeps.  Our field is in need of a unique hastag. I originally tried #ecse but it seemed that the #ecse hashtag apparently has some meaning in French and is was being used heavily for that purpose.  At that time, the feed created by #ecse was more French than ECSE related.  That being said, some of us continue to add it to tweets so it worth following that one.  I have found useful information under #earlyintervention, but it is also used by professionals in other fields such as mental health, chemical dependency, and medicine. I am proposing a hashtag more specific to our field (I feel like I am running a campaign!!),  #earlyedsped.  It is still a little long, but I am hoping that it will catch on with birth to 3 early intervention providers and Early Childhood Special Education professionals.  I am also hoping that related service providers who work in early childhood will find and use it.  It can also be a place where early childhood educators, child care providers and other caregivers of young children can look for information related to young children with special needs.  I usually include #earlyedsped in my tweets along with any other tags I think might be relevant.  I am asking you to please consider using #earlyedsped when you are tweeting something that would benefit other ECSE/Early Intervention professionals, or you are asking a question and want feedback from other professionals.  I look forward to learning from you!

      One last suggestion, then I will stop!  Other professionals appreciate it when you share information from conferences or other professional development sessions.  Twitter is a useful platform for this purpose.  Next time you are at a state level DEC conference, an ECSE leadership conference, or any other training related to our field, consider tweeting about it.  Karen Nemeth wrote an article about why and how.  Because our field is just starting to use Twitter, you may need to suggest a hashtag for the conference or session.  Remember to try to keep the hashtag short so it doesn’t eat up your allotted characters.  When you start tweeting about it, make sure to also add #earlyedsped so we know it is related to our field.  

     I hope this information is useful and will help those of us in our field connect.  I look forward to some great conversations.  If you have any questions or suggestions about using Twitter, please email me.  I am compiling a list of ECSE and Early Intervention blogs, so if you blog or have a website, tweet it to me or email.  My email is jodialtringer@gmail.com.  

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    @jodialtringer
                                                                                    Jodi Altringer

Why Early Education professionals should use Twitter.

Recently someone asked me why early childhood educators should connect through Twitter. She shared that her preferred social media platform for professional development is Pinterest. 

I use Pinterest and I like Pinterest.  Pinterest is a great tool for finding and sharing teaching materials and strategies.  I think this is important and beneficial, but there is more to the field of early education than instructional materials, art projects, and thematic units.  There are the philosophies, frameworks, and beliefs that lead us to choose the materials we are using.  There is not just the “what”, there is the “why”.  Why are we teaching what we are teaching, why are we teaching the way we are teaching, and why are we using the materials we are using?  I am challenging early educators to move beyond Pinterest, because Pinterest isn't conducive to conversations. I am challenging early educators to take the next step and engage in conversations about early education on Twitter.  The conversations taking place move beyond art projects and themes.  On Twitter, early educators are challenging one another, discussing best practice, asking “why”, discussing research and advocating for developmentally appropriate practices.  They are talking about the importance of early education, policies that shape our profession, and practices that are effective and not so effective in getting the results we hope to achieve.  The conversation is taking place with or without you, I am hoping to convince you that it is worth your time to join the conversation, because our field needs more voices. 

K-12 educators are reaping the numerous benefits of connecting with others through Twitter and blogging. The conversations they are having related to pedagogy, research, and what is working and not working in education, challenge individual educators to continue to improve and advance the education profession. These educators' voices are being heard.  Policy makers are aware of the conversations and taking note. The field of early childhood education can not afford to miss out on the opportunities that Twitter presents to our profession. 

Historically, early childhood has often been overlooked and not given the same respect or attention that is given to the K-12 world. Our field is finally getting some attention. This attention brings with it a great responsibility and sense of urgency. We need to show that as a field, we are also discussing pedagogy, research and “why”. We need to be recognized as a professional group who stays current, integrates research based practice, and knows how to teach.  We need to connect and converse so our voices will be heard. We need to share failures and successes so we move our field forward. Collectively we have a rich experience and background, our conversations can encourage and support one another to be intentional in our teaching, leading to positive outcomes for the children and families we serve. 

Another reason connecting in early education is beneficial is related to the concept of “burn out”.  We have important, rewarding, and often challenging jobs. I have found that connecting with others has lessened my sense of burn out and has sparked a renewed passion in professional development. Knowing that others are facing similar challenges is reassuring. Hearing the strategies they are using to overcome these challenges is inspiring. Reading the latest research, discussing philosophy, beliefs and “why”, strengthens my resolve to integrate research based practices into my teaching and to adapt and improve.  It also inspires me to  advocate to do what we know is best for children even when faced with many barriers.  Connecting with others leads to reflection, reflection moves you forward, moving forward helps you to avoid burn out, stay motivated and stay inspired. 

Being a connected early educator benefits you, your profession and ultimately, your students.  I hope you will consider joining in the conversation.  My Twitter handle is @jodialtringer. To get started, consider searching the following hashtags;  #earlyed, #earlyedsped, #kinderchat, #ecechat, #earlyintervention, #preschool, #childcare, and #preK.  Talk to you on Twitter!