New Apps in Action for LD: Enhancing Input and

Output.

EDUC 5163 P4Karen Dumay dumay7@gmail.comEmily Gabriel egabreil@staff.ednet.ns.caMary MacDonald marmacdo@staff.ednet.ns.caMelanie O’Leary moleary31@yahoo.com

Learning Disabilities refer to a variety of disorders that affect the acquisition, retention, understanding or use of verbal and/or non-verbal information. These disorders result from impairments in one or more psychological processes related to “learning” in combination with otherwise average abilities essential for thinking and reasoning.

Learning disabilities range in severity, interfere with acquisition and use of one or more of the following skills:•Oral language (eg., listening, speaking, understanding).•Reading (e.g., decoding, comprehension)•Written language (e.g., spelling, written expression)•Mathematics

(Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario, 2001)

Learning Disabilities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdIyC48iXEY

New Apps in Action for LD: Enhancing Input and Output.

Emily – Reading ComprehensionKaren – 7 Notes PremiumMary – Tools4StudentsMelanie – AppWriter US

Reading ComprehensionDifferent levels of

reading for studentsCan use it for reading

groups as well.Speech selection works

with this◦ Makes it especially useful

for students who may have difficulty reading independently.

Use it as an assessment tool.

Versatile, lots of different subjects.

Mastering Sight Words

Teaching sight words in context and through repetition

App maximizes word exposure

Level 1 and Level 2

7 Notes Premium By: 7knowledge International

Corporation

Technology is here to stay. However, it is not present in all of Nova Scotia schools. The traditional way of teaching (pen, paper and heavy textbooks) is not meeting the needs of all learners. Students regardless of their learning abilities need to have the chance to be successful in their learning.

This APP can be downloaded on one’s iPod at a minimum cost of $4.99 or on one’s iPad for $8.99.

 Strengths

 

 Weaknesses

 - Word prediction - Spell Check- Edit text - Add visuals - Stylus (optional) 

 - Does not have text to speech- Does not recognize personal handwriting (?)- Cannot transfer data from Word document

LD students who have limited writing skills will benefit a great deal from using the 7 Notes Premium. The App can help LD students keep up with note taking while allowing them to add some visual aids. The more personalized students’ notes are the easier it is to review them at a later date. Students with severe LD will need assistance using this App as it requires some prior knowledge/skills:1) Research skills 2) Effective Grammar skills (sentence structure)3) Dexterity (need to use stylus or finger)

• Tools 4 Students is an incredibly useful iPod Touch / iPad App.

• Supports students written output.• 25 different editable graphic organisers to

organise students thinking and comprehend new information.

• Supports organization, story preplanning by covering common comprehension skills: cause /effect, main idea/detail, sequence events, pro/con, story elements, characterization, word meaning, plot, KWL and much more.

• Students can save their work on their iPad, or email completed organisers to their teacher, who can share them via Google Docs, or print them off. The app can also be projected onto an whiteboard for whole-class demonstrations and activities. An added bonus is that this App doesn’t require the WiFi to work.

99¢

http://carnazzosclass.wikispaces.com/The+Lorax

Features of AppWriter US• Only for iPad with i0S5• Costs $19.99 (but well worth the money).• Supports both reading (input) and writing (output) through:

1. Text to speech2. Best to date word prediction supports

students with3. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) –

scan text and make it machine readable supports

4. Highlights text as reads aloud5. Special dyslexie font6. Can email, send to drop box and

import into an APP

AppWriter US

Below is a demonstration showing many of the features offered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEi0l5Tyrfk

Below is a demonstration showing how the feature Dyslexie works.

http://www.joachim-scholz.com/academipad/2012/05/09/appwriter-learning-disabilities

/

AppWriter Us supports students with:

•ADD,• ADHD, •Asperger’s Syndrome, •Central Auditory Processing Disorder (would need to use ear buds), •Dysgraphia, •Dyslexia, •Dyspraxia, •Visual Discrimination, •Visual Figure-Ground Discrimination, •Visual Memory, •Visual Motor Processing,•Visual Spatial Difficulties •Visual Sequencing.