Class #7:  Friday, July 11^th

Webinar #1:  Apps to Enhance Executive Functions

Executive functioning:  driven by the frontal lobe of the brain

• Responsible regulation, time management
• Set of processes (self-management, management of resources)
• Pulls from many areas of the brain to use processes to meet goals
• conductor of orchestra, CEO of the brain (analogies)
• Think—Decide--- Act
• behavioural regulation
• students are inconsistent in their performance
• reading, writing and math are effected
• Production is impacted—i.e. writing thoughts on paper, planning for assignment due and how to accomplish and organize themselves (thoughts, materials, time-management)

Executive function difficulties:

• frontal lobe dysfunction in all psychiatric disorders
• any student with a mental health diagnosis, must look at executive function difficulties
• Ex:  students with ADHD (focus, select attention, sustain attention, self-regulate), students with ODD (self-regulation, for-seeing the outcome of their behaviour), Students with Autism (self-awareness)
• High structured learning environment is important to support executive function difficulties
• When assignments are not mediated by the teacher, these students have difficulties determine how to start an assignment, etc
• Thinking- planning and prioritizing, working memory, time management, organization, metacognition (self-monitoring)

 Planning & Prioritizing Apps:

• Tools4Students- has graphic organizers, teachers use it with class and project onto white board while students are following, teacher could choose the organizer and fill in parts for students who require this support (FREE)
• Reminder- scheduling, planning, prioritizing

Emotional Control Apps:

• Take a Chill- ability to manage emotions in order to achieve goals, complete tasks or control direct behaviour (0.99)
• Let Panic Go- managing anxiety (2.99) guides student to engage in calming behaviour, junior high, high school students, adults
• The Shredder (0.99)- type in negative thoughts and drag thoughts into the shredder, rid themselves of negative thoughts
• Calm Counter (2.99)- visual aid to provide supports to manage emotions

Sustained Attention Apps:

• SoundCurtain (4.99):  blocks out background noise and enhances focus and attention, engagement and concentration on task; adjusts sound output to the amount of sound going on in the environment, has intelligence, self-adjusting white noise or other sounds
• iBooks:  Enhanced Books or Textbooks, interest added to textbooks with embedded video, animations, audio, highlighting, etc (free)
• Visual Timer  (0.99)- set the timer to visually count down, easy to use or apply

Organization Apps:

• Student Life Organizer (Free)- calendar app and organizer, easy to customize
• Calendar App
• PhotoMind, Picture Scheduler

Metacognition:

Self-monitoring, self-evaluation skills

• Waitstrip (0.99) Waitstrip Timer (Free)
• iRewards (3.00 or free lite version)- rewards chart for children
• Sosh Voice Meter (visual feedback on voice volume)

Response Inhibition Apps:

Thing before you act, ability to resist urge to do or say/ evaluation of the situation

• Pictello (18.99) ejournals, picture stories, voice recoded
• Conover Company- Functional Life Skills Series, Social Skills Sampler (free), Everyday Social Skills HD (1.99)- modelling skills

Task Initiation Apps:

• Inspiration (9.99- ipad only) use as a visual graphic organizer to cue writing, step-by-step organizer
• Work System (Free) a visual schedule- walks a student though what to do when working through a specific task

Flexibility/ Adaptability Apps:

• Sock Puppets- (free) fun, easy to use, role playing, social stories
• Fantastic Four in a Row (0.99)- experiences with winning and losing, choices of games, group work, pairs, fun and easy
• Triggers
• SOSH Recognition

Webinar #2:  Apps for students with LD

Reading & Assessing Information

• go to “Settings” on ipad, touch Accessibility Options—Speak Selection (will pronounce words that are highlighted)
• Guided Access- restricts the user to just one app

iBooks

• will allow us to readaloud pdf documents 
• can establish personalized bookshelves, organize by student or subject
• enhanced textbooks (ex: Biology 12 textbook) able to use enhanced books before you make the purchase
• has built in quizzes (called widgets)

ReadIris  (37.99)

• Document scanner
• Import images or pdf files from your photo library and clipboard, import pdf files received from other apps

Type on PDF (free)

• student can scan a document and then type their answers on a scanned document and email them to their teachers

PDF Voice Reader (4.99)

• Allows students to follow along
• reads pdf files

Prizmo (9.99)

• Take a picture of text in a book or written
• Transfers the writing to text
• the app will read the text to student

Puffin Web Browser (free or 2.99)

• supports apps that require flash
• access to ebook sites: tumblebooks, raz-kids, StarFall

Qwiki (free) – unable to locate in app store (??)

• reference app that presents information in text and visual, video/ audio
• interactive 

iWordQ (24.99)

• enhance writing for those with LD, physical difficulties
• enhanced word prediction
• text-to-speech
• read alound text with chunking options

Siri Dictation

• voice to text
• available in ANY app- notes, pages, docs to go
• can be challenging to use, students must speak clearly
• requires wifi

Paperport Notes (free)

• Import pdf
• Annotate on any imported document
• Great for test taking, snap a picture of hard cope and type in answers, email to teacher

PaperHelper (1.99)

• One of a kind app
• Two screens that run simultaneously- word processor and research document
• Shmoop- website that was used with this app (must create use and password)

Sticky Notes for iPad (0.99)

• Simple to drag and move the notes
• Double tap to edit the notes
• Easy to use

Panther Calculator (6.99)

• A calculator for students with physical disabilities or other
• Large screen
• Easy to user

Panther Math Paper (19.99)

• Incorporates UDL principles so all users can complete math
• For beginning to advanced math

Drop Box

• Allows you to share a product that you have developed on your ipad
• Accessible to students on computers or mobile technology
• Easy way to share large files through mobile devices
• Share files via email invitation links, requires wi-fi

Top 3 Apps from each webinar:

iBooks: (mentioned in both webinars) FREE
This app would be highly useful for students who require reading supports such as decoding (using the text to speech component) or visual supports such as enlarged text (using the tool that magnifies text). The app encourages vocabulary development as users may highlight and select define for any words in a book file and a definition will be provided. I am excited about the prospect of using enhanced textbooks through this app. I think that many of the student with whom I work at the high school level would highly benefit from interactive textbooks in courses such as African Canadian Studies or the Global Studies courses.

Take a Chill (1.99)
This app is used for emotional regulation including anxiety and other emotional issues that affect many of our students. The app prompts the user to move to a calm setting and to participate in mind clearing activities including deep breathing. I think that many of my students could benefit from the use of this app as they often leave their classes to seek emotional support in the resource room. Such students are often dealing with issues relating to home, or friends, or circumstances that are inhibiting their ability to focus on their school work.

Work System (Free)

This is an app that allows you to create visual schedules for students as a method of reinforcing what they should do at each stage of a specific task.  Such schedules may be used with students in elementary school in the classroom setting to provide assistance in breaking down tasks such as projects or assignments, or for the reinforcement of life-skills, such as getting dressed for outside. One of the positive aspects of using an electronic-based visual schedule is that it can adapted as the student develops

Siri Dictation (used with any app)

This is a free program that is included in the ipad that will translate voice to text in any app.  When a keyboard appears on the screen for students to input information, they must touch the microphone button (alongside the space bar) and speak clearly into the ipad.  The word will be transferred into text.  This program is an effective tool for students who struggle with writing or spelling.

Prizmo (9.99)

This app allows students to take a picture of text in a book or writing, the writing is transferred to text and then the app will read the text to the student. It is easy to use and accessible from an ipad, so students can use it in their classrooms without having to go to a computer in a lab or resource room to use other text-reader programs (such as Kurzweil).  I know that this app would be highly beneficial to a significant number of students on my resource caseload who currently access Kurzweil from a PC in Resource or have the text read to them.

Type on PDF (free)

Using this app, a student can scan a document (such as a worksheet) and then type their answers or notes onto the document, and then email the document to their teacher, or print it to be used as a resource in another assignment. The app could be used alongside of the Prizmo app (described above) so that the student could read the text using Prizmo and record their answers using Type on PDF.  Again, this is an app that could be used directly in the classroom through the use of an ipad.