GlowDraw app Tutorial

I recently had another person confused by the pesky Glow Draw app's unclear method for loading a photo from your stream/album.  So, here is a quick tutorial on how to load worksheets, photos, etc. into GlowDraw for your students!  (I use this app to do worksheets that my students wouldn't TOUCH if it weren't on the iPad... miracle!)

 Open the GlowDraw App!

 Click on the Pencil in the bottom Left corner.

 Click on the rectangle (3rd icon from the bottom left).

 Click on the set of 4 boxes (2nd icon from the bottom left).

 Click on an album/stream containing your desired photo/etc.

 Choose the photo/etc. that you wish to upload.

 When the photo/etc. (here pictured a worksheet on Social Skills) is in the app, you can begin drawing or hit the "back" button to return to other options.

You can choose other colors by clicking the color wheel pictured in the previous screenshot, then choose your color.  This is a favorite feature of my students!

 

Other features are size of the "brush" by clicking the two small circles here (2nd icon from bottom left), saving/e-mailing your photo creation by clicking the arrow coming from the rectangel (4th icon from the bottom left), and "undo" which can be found at the top left of the screen after you have made a brush stroke (not pictured here).

I hope this helps you to utilize this app a bit mroe.  It's truly a lifesaver for all of those great worksheet materials we have around that students are untinterested in!  Enjoy!

How else have you used GlowDraw (or a similar app) in therapy?

App Review - Super Duper Inc's What Would You Do at SCHOOL If... Fun Deck app

Another App Review for you... Here is Super Duper Inc's What Would You Do at SCHOOL If... Fun Deck app:

 This simple deck comes in handy with many of my students but mostly with my students with problem-solving goals, pragmatic difficulties, and overall expressive language difficulties.

The app a simple and colorful photo of a situation at school.  If you touch the screen, a voice clearly states the question.  You can keep track of correct/incorrect responses with the red and green buttons on the bottom.

  You can view each student's accuracies on the "View Results" page and e-mail it to yourself or others.

 Other great features of this app include:

~Multiple players

~Ability to choose which questions to display

~Tutorial, links, etc.

If I could change anything with this app (and the other fun decks from Super Duper) would be the ability to keep several sessions for a student in the app to see progress.

This app, along with all other Super Duper Inc. apps are available on iTunes for $1.99.

App Review - Super Duper Inc's What Does Miss Bee See Fun DeckApp

Another App Review for you... Here is Super Duper Inc's What Does Miss Bee See Fun Deck app:

 This simple deck comes in handy with MANY different articulation and language students and goals.  I use it to target grammar, language, artic carry-over, expansion of utterances, inferring, identifying clues, etc.

The app a simple and colorful photo featuring Miss Bee, with text.  If you touch the screen, a voice clearly states the question.  You can keep track of correct/incorrect responses with the red and green buttons on the bottom.

 You can view each student's accuracies on the "View Results" page and e-mail it to yourself or others.

Other great features of this app include:

~Multiple players

~Ability to choose which questions to display

~Tutorial, links, etc.

If I could change anything with this app (and the other fun decks from Super Duper) would be the ability to keep several sessions for a student in the app to see progress.

This app, along with all other Super Duper Inc. apps are available on iTunes for $1.99.

App Review - Super Duper Inc's Yes or No Fun Deck app

Another App Review for you... Here is Super Duper Inc's Yes or No Fun Deck app:

 This simple deck comes in handy with many different students and goals.

 The app a simple, colorful, and sometimes funny photo with text below.  If you touch the screen, a voice clearly states the question.  When the student selects their answer, it either becomes green or orange indicating right/wrong.

You can view each student's accuracies on the "View Results" page and e-mail it to yourself or others.

 Other great features of this app include:

~Multiple players

~Ability to choose which questions to display

~Tutorial, links, etc.

If I could change anything with this app (and the other fun decks from Super Duper) would be the ability to keep several sessions for a student in the app to see progress.

This app, along with all other Super Duper Inc. apps are available on iTunes for $1.99.

App Review - Super Super Inc's Compare and Contrast Fun Deck

Sadly, summer is already flying by.  I've been hard at work with my Extended School Year kiddos but wanted to stop in and add a few reviews for you... Here is Super Duper Inc's Compare and Contrast Fun Deck app:

 Many of my language students are working on vocabulary, attributes, similarities/differences, grammar, and more.  This deck comes in handy with those students as well as my artic kiddos (carry-over).

 The app provides two similar yet different objects/actions together on the screen in simple, colorful, and sometimes funny photos.  If you touch the screen, a voice clearly states what the two objects are.  At the bottom of the screen are red and green dots, used for tallying correct/incorrect answers.

You can view each student's accuracies on the "View Results" page and e-mail it to yourself or others.

Other great features of this app include:

~Multiple players

~Ability to choose which photos to display

~Tutorial, links, etc.

If I could change anything with this app (and the other fun decks from Super Duper) would be the ability to keep several sessions for a student in the app to see progress.

This app, along with all other Super Duper Inc. apps are available on iTunes for $1.99.

Augmenting Board Books

 

I have a confession... I'm obsessed with board books!  I particularly enjoy finding them for the least amount of money possible!  They are great for early intervention, early childhood, and the severe/multiple disorder populations.  This summer, I have the opportunity to get back to the population I LOVE working with... severe/multiple disorders and Autism!  One thing I believe whole-heartily in is incorporating reading with AAC whenever possible.  This is where my small collection of thick-page cardboard loveliness comes into play... I've been creating boardmaker symbol sets to insert into board books for my summer kiddos!

I know there are a lot of available augmented books on the web.  However, some of them use symbols that are outdated or do not fit into the books.  The reason I put the symbols into the book (with tape) is simple... that's where the words are so that's where the symbols belong.  Many of my students have difficulty moving from the augmented book print-out to the actual book which contains the great color and illustrations which are vital to the books!  So, I create my symbol sets to fit over the existing words (as best as possible) so that the natural flow of reading is promoted.  I also include punctuation, capitalization, and ALL words just as they appear in the book.

Here's how I do this:

1. Create the symbol sets in Boardmaker... sometimes this requires measuring the available space in the book which, I admit, is a bit more work but totally worth it.

2. Printing out the symbol sets either in black and white or color.  I suggest using black and white for the majority of the symbols and making sure that all color symbols are in color (or that you color them in with marker/colored pencil).

3. Tape the symbol sets into the books on top of the existing words.

4. Read!

Also, sometimes my students can use their device to read along with the story or a majority of the story.  They can answer questions about the story, etc.!  It's exciting to see them read more independently with the addition of these sets!  I will be adding to this list as the summer progresses but for now, enjoy these PDF versions of the Boardmaker sets.  I can also e-mail the boardmaker files but wanted to post PDF versions for those of you who aren't lucky enough to have Boardmaker yet!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? (PDF & .bm Versions)

My Many Colored Days (PDF & .bm Versions)
The Very Busy Spider (PDF & .bm Versions)
The Foot Book (PDF & .bm Versions)