Hands on shopping day for suitable APPs:

It was not only an interesting and informative session today, but it was also a lot of fun. To get to recognize the variety of APPs available online customized to specific children’s needs is appealing, even if some of them are for entertaining purposes only, because children would need to have some fun from time to time to relieve stress. Downloading these APPs to the IPod touch and getting to try them is a very practical activity, especially to be familiar with APPs that would be useful for specific special needs students. A table could be created in the phase of locating and verifying applications for specific cases. For instance, a column could be for the cases in mind, with another column for the APPs available classified in categories of student’s needs that would be met if utilized. This suggested way is an organized approach to help in finding a specific match for specific needs. Moreover, the activity uncovered other possibilities for using the IPod Touch instead of Proloqu2go that might be of a great help.

Here is my Assignment 2:

The student’s profile / background:

The student is my daughter, Hend, a three year-old girl, who arrived in Canada last year because her parents have moved to Canada wishing to continue their education. She had lived her three first years in Saudi Arabia where people use Arabic to communicate, and she developed good skills in Arabic Language. Moreover, she is a smart and very articulate girl who would be very upset and depressed when placed in an environment where she would not be able to understand the people around her. It would be even more frustrating when she is trying to articulate a need and no one can figure out this need. In fact, this posed an actual problem for her because in the children’s center where her parents need to leave her for the whole day, people use English language to communicate. The need for the APPs is to let her develop the basic sentences or phrases for articulating her needs first and then to be able to socialize and communicate with others in the children’s centre.

Identify the 3 APPS you chose, describe them briefly and how they work?

The first App is ‘TapToTalk’. When launching this app, there will be a wide range of frequently used phrases hidden behind cards that have pictures to identify them. When touching any picture, it will be maximized in the screen and show the sentence or phrase written and pronounced at the same time. It is possible to hit them again and again until the child is able to memorize the sentence as a whole. The app offers a set of the most frequently used words, phrases, or sentences, such as ‘Let’s go’, ‘It’s time for school’, ‘I want to go to the playground’, ‘I have to go to the bathroom’. There is a wide variety of all common impressions, such as ‘I’m angry’, ‘I don’t like this’, or ‘I got hurt’, etc. All the child would need to do is press on the picture and it will speak, show the written sentences, and the pictures.

The second App is ‘Learn To Talk Sampler’, which is a bit more advanced app than ’TapToTalk’. There are six categories of sentences or phrases. They are arranged in a list starting from ‘high impact words’, such as all done, bye, and hi. The second category is ‘objects and labels’ such as apple, balloon, and door. The third category is ‘actors’ such as baby, cow, or cat. Then there is the ‘one word actions’ category, such as bath, and the ‘two word actions’ category, such as blow out candles. The last category is ‘All cards’ where everything is organized alphabetically and the child can navigate through the pictures and touch any one that he/she wants to learn more about.

The third App called ‘EnglishPod: Learn English’ is more sophisticated with more advanced features.. Built into this APP are several actual lessons classified in topics to learn English in some contexts and situations that simulate real situations in terms of language use. When choosing a lesson in a specific topic, there are six categories: introduction, listen, dialogue, vocabulary, expansion, discussion. Each one will take up to several lessons in that specific category with the specific topic chosen.

Why I chose these APPs

I chose the first two APPs because they are very simple and easy to utilize with a friendly interface. At the same time they offer a very basic and sufficient set of phrases and common sentences required to articulate and communicate in English language conversations. Furthermore, they mainly rely on pictures in a way that is easy to follow for a three year-old girl who cannot read and has not had any previous experiences with IPod touch, IPhone, or any similar device.
I chose the third APP because at some point she will be proficient at the two APPs and would want some more advanced information in the language. This APP would offer a broader set of vocabularies to initiate more advanced conversations and many listening practices.

How they can be utilized as an accommodation to meet my daughters various needs?

The first app, ‘TapToTalk’, is a good start for Hend because it is very straightforward and has several basic phrases. All she needs to do is to identify the picture describing her current need and touch it. The first step will be me at home walking her through the IPod touch, how to turn it on and off, and how to launch the ‘TapToTalk’ APP. After she became more competent in how to use it, her teachers would be consulted, and she might be allowed to take it to the day care, or it would be given to one of her teachers to let her use it when needed. She might spend two weeks or more on this APP alone. Then, she will be directed to switch to the second one, ‘Learn To Talk Sampler’, and she might spend some more time with this one because it has more skills to be practiced than the first one. At this point, she will be taught how to switch from one APP to the other as some phrases may be available in one APP and not the other. She will be allowed to use those APPs at home for more practice.

In her spare time at home, when her English language level is developed, she will be introduced to the third APP because it would require a basic knowledge of English and some more developed navigation skills of the IPod touch that will be acquired after utilizing the two first APPs for at least a month. For this APP, she will be given a more extended period of time, depending on her wish to practice more of it, because it has more things to offer and it requires more practice to attain the desired skills.