Last week, I talked about some of my favorite apps that I use as “tools,” much like I would use a physical objects such as timers, white boards, or a metronome. In case you missed it, please check out that post here. Let’s go ahead and jump back into it and continue my list of favorite app “tools” to use with the adolescent population!
- Auto Rap Are you looking for a modern, fun way to get your quiet students to speak up? Are sessions with your Mod/Severe students lacking spice? Why not rap! Auto Rap turns anything it hears into an auto-tuned rap, how fun is that? Here’s an example of one way I used this app: When working on functional phrases with my Mod/Severe students, they all take turns saying their phrase into the iPad in order to have it turned into a rap. It engages students who may otherwise have been unlikely to participate and the students really enjoy getting the rap feedback, It encourages practice because once they learned how the app functioned, I required them to practice multiple times without the app in order to be ready to rap! Another app, Rap Wars offers more free beats; however, for my therapy purposes, I’ve found the free beats on Auto Rap to be perfectly sufficient.
- Class Dojo This is an app I have only used with my Moderate/Severe classes, although I could definitely see it working well with a group of unruly freshmen. Class Dojo serves as a behavior monitoring app that allows each of the students in your group to be visually represented by a “monster” that you can award or detract points for any type of behavior you identify (e.g. answer a question, make a comment, off-task comment, negative comment, etc.). The app is represented on all platforms - computer, tablet, phone, etc. so I will often display the points on the SMARTBoard for all the students to see while using my iPad to record points as I walk around the room. It serves to motivate the students greatly - they’re competitive, after all! - and it’s an easy way to record data since it tracks what the student did to earn or lose the point. I definitely recommend exploring this app if you haven’t tried it before!
- Flashcards+ by Chegg I get it, sometimes flashcards are a necessity. As much as I loathe drilling and killing artic, vocab, and other skills with flashcards, sometimes the occasion calls for it. The next time you consider jerry rigging some old Super Duper cards to try and fit the needs of your adolescents, consider creating a custom deck on your iPad! No printing, laminating, or cutting required! You can use pictures straight from the internet (so they can be very age appropriate) and write as much or as little information on each side of the “card.” You can save them in groups and then have decks ready for use in future situations. I’ve even used this app to create custom task cards for a board game! There’s lots of ways to integrate custom digital flashcards into your therapy.
- Getty Images & Thinkstock These apps are essentially large caches of images sorted by categories, however you can search for specific images. I like Getty Images because the photographs are typically very colorful and beautiful with lots of opportunities to discuss what’s in the picture. You can save images to “boards” (think Pinterest), although you can’t download them unless you purchase a subscription. However, if you plan on using them as a type of busy picture or discussion point, they look great as a full-screen iPad display! Thinkstock is similar in function, however it focuses more on stock photos rather than the beautiful photos Getty Images tends to have. I like to use the apps because oftentimes searching for images on Google Images doesn’t quite give me what I want (e.g. images are too small, not very visually interesting, etc). And I like the opportunity to save the images in groups within the app; with Google Images I would have to copy each image into a Word Document if I wanted to save it, which is time consuming and the formatting is always a nightmare!
- Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla is a silly, fun app I find myself using with really hesitant articulation and voice students. The app consists of a series of black and white faces that respond when audio input is presented. The faces mutate and change to reflect what the app hears. It doesn’t really look overly juvenile or childish and the students seem to enjoy the visual feedback they receive!
I hope this two-part series has provided you with some inspiration and ideas to take to your therapy sessions tomorrow. Let me know in the comments if you have a favorite “tool” app that I haven’t discovered yet!
As always, it doesn't have to be fancy, just keep it fun and functional!
- Jillian, the No-Frills SLP
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