IEAR Post: My Pictures Talk app

This was originally posted (my first!) at IEAR, a great place to find iOS (iPad, iPod, etc.) apps.

App Title: My Pictures Talk

Grade Level: Any

Purpose: A - Think "Photo Story 3 meets the iOS." A simple to use slideshow creation tool. 

Program Functionality: B+ - I really like how easy it ease to create a new slideshow. It's simple to pull in pics or video synched to your device or use your devices camera (hopefully iPad2's also?) to add. It's also incredibly easy to add text and audio directly on to slides. The only drawback is, once you finish a slide, you are directed back to the slideshow home page to create a new page. I would love to see a "save and make new slide" button. Files are also shared as a zip file, not as a movie.

Overall Educational Value: A - The app bills itself as a "video modeling tool." Our original purpose for this app was exactly that - using it with special education students to work on video modeling. But the app is so flexible, I could see it being used for a LOT of different purposes in the elementary classroom.

Cost: $9.99 ($4.99 if you buy 20 in Apple's VPP)

Classroom Use/Ideas: Again, the flexibility of this tool is amazing and really only limits you to your imagination. Combining real pictures or video with the text and audio can be huge for the special education student needing extra guidance or any student wanting to share what they know. And all of the creation can be done on the iOS device.

iTunes link: My Pictures Talk

Reviewer: Josh Allen

Blog: The Tech Fridge

Moving Mobile: Month 3

You learn very early in your life that January in Nebraska holds many opportunities for snow days! Since coming back from Winter Break, we still haven't had a full week of classes. That can make rescheduling meetings just as long as the meeting would've been.
However, our Special Education staff is continuing to implement their iPads and iPod Touches (previous posts here and here). One thing that we are excited to see is that the search for apps is moving from reinforcement to skill development. Reinforcement is great, and it's a continual part of engaging the students, but the device isn't being fully leveraged if that's the only thing you are using it for. One app that we are very excited about are iWriteWords (there is a free version). iWriteWords lines up fairly well with our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum and "forces" students to practice writing letters correctly before moving on to the next task. 
Our next big step is going to be creating our own videos for students. These videos will be focused on telling a story or cues that a student would normally use paper for (On a somewhat separate thought, we have discussed creating movies to demonstrate math processes...something that could be put on these devices as well). Our February monthly meeting will be a hands on training on using power point slides to create movies. I'm very excited about this because of the customization it will bring to each device for students. I'm hoping that we can jointly create a library of videos for teachers to access both on the device and on their computers. 

Becoming More Mobile

Next week we will hand out 9 iPads and 8 iPod Touches to some of our district's Special Education staff. The devices were purchased through a grant received by the SPED department. These aren't the first devices of their kind in our district, but they are the first that will be supported with specific training (both face to face and online) and will be exclusively in the hands of students. iPod use has always been sporadic and we've never offered training specific to them. We have only a few iPads in the district, mainly concentrated at one high school with their administrators. We see this group of SPED teachers as our "guinea pigs" in many senses - from the management with students to how Apple's Volume Purchasing Program works. We are very fortunate that they've been able to contain their excitement while the SPED, Curriculum, and Technology departments get their ducks in a row.

We definitely see a future for these devices, and other similar ones, in our district. We feel that devices like the iPad could replace a cart (or two) of laptops in our elementary buildings. Through our lease purchasing process, all elementary computers will be replaced by next fall, so it's been good timing for all of this. We still have lots of questions, but many won't be answered until we start moving forward.

One mistake I've already made (in my opinion), is that our resources are stored on our Intranet. It takes an extra step for us to share with the rest of the world. I'm always more than welcome to share, it just isn't as convenient because you have to ask :)

On our Intranet, we've created a FAQ section (from what the buttons do to purchase process), an editable spreadsheet of all of our purchased apps in the district, and a page with links to a variety of resources.

Here are some links that we are starting our teachers out with (thanks to Richard Byrne for sharing bit.ly bundles yesterday!):

• For both the iPad and iPod Touch
• iPad Resources
• iPod Touch Resources

ZAC Browser

I actually thought I had mentioned the following before, so I apologize for not getting this to everyone sooner. This is a tool that needs to be shared with SPED staff.

The ZAC (Zone for Autistic Children) Browser is a web browser specifically designed for autistic students. Developed by a grandpa for his autistic grandson, it takes away all of the unnecessary fluff from websites and puts the same site into a less distracting browser. So the autistic student performs the same task on the same websites as other students. The ZAC Browser can be downloaded to computers or run off of their website. The best part? It's completely free.

I first learned about this from "Teachers Love SMART Boards": SMART Boards and a Browsing Breakthrough