Janet

Itunes U is a place to go for curriculum, courses, and video from academic institutions.

"Wish List" of ten professional apps: 1. __**Thinkin' Things**__ ($8.99) for ages 3-8 (grades pre-K- 2). Five different games focus on higher-level thinking skills (memory, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity). Reading is not required and the directions on what to do are given by the characters. Twenty-first century learning skills for young learners! I would use these games with my preschoolers with disabilities as "the challenge level automatically adjusts to meet individual learning needs".
 * Assignment 2**

2. Articulation Station (free- for one trial sound- p) to help children and adults pronounce speech sounds more clearly. Fun game activities can be carried out by teachers or parents. This app was created by a speech-language pathologist and targets speech sounds in the initial, medial, and final positions at the word, sentence and story level. Articulation Station offers 22 sound programs for purchase. Most of the children on my caseload have speech delays. This would be a great app to help my students practice specific speech sounds and to share with parents for additional practice at home.

3. __**Model Me Going Places 2**__ (free) This app is part of the "Model Me Kids" social skills video training series for children with Autism and Asperger Syndrome. This app provides videos for modeling social skills in six familiar locations in the community. There is a photo slideshow for each location with narration of appropriate behavior. I would use this with individual or small groups of children in class to discuss the appropriate behavior. This would also be great to use in the actual setting to immediately practice the modeled behavior. Also great for carry over with parents as they will be in these community settings with their children most often.

4. __**Clean Up: Category Sorting**__ ($1.99) This game targets language, sorting and classifying skills. The game shows 75 photo pictures of food, clothing. and toys. The child "cleans up" by putting each item into the shopping cart, refrigerator, or toy box. The pictures are shown in groups of 15 with an option to continue. The app takes data on the percentage of correct answers! Sorting and classifying are skills we work on regularly in the preschool classroom, so this app would be a great way to practice individually or with a teacher. The data collection feature would help with monitoring this skill as an IEP goal.

5. __**QuestionIt**__ ($24.99) This is an app for children with autism or significant language disorders who have trouble asking and answering questions. It provides systematic instruction on what kind of word answers which type of "Wh" question (Who, Where, When, What...). The app uses color cues and other techniques to guide the learner, and can track results for multiple students. It is appropriate for a wide age-range of students. The ratings and reviews were very positive, especially comments from speech-language pathologists. I would like to use this app with the children in my integrated classroom as it is appropriate for all preschoolers and those who struggle with language.

6. __**Dora' ABCs Vol 2: Rhyming Words**__ ($4.99) This app focuses on teaching awareness of individual sounds, "phonemes", in words and how they can be changed to make new words that rhyme. "The ability to hear, discriminate and manipulate phonemes is highly associated with reading readiness in early childhood." The player must listen and match rhyming words in order to collect tokens that allow the player to pass over the bridge. Dora leads the way on this adventure! Rhyme is a difficult skill for some children to "hear" and discriminate. We expose our students to rhyme in many different activities. This sounds like a fun game to practice this skill.

7. __**Visual Creator**__ ($29.99) The Visual Creator is an app for making visual aids such as behavioral charts, picture schedules, and communications boards for students with special needs. It provides over 1000 photos and you can also add your own. Additional photo categories are available (100-400 photos per set) for $.99 each. The Visual Creator app provides over 200 templates and ready-made pages which you can customize to fit the needs of individual students. Reviews were positive from both therapists and parents. I think I would enjoy this app as I regularly make visual charts to help with schedules, behavior, and concepts/directions for those students with language delays.

8. __**Picture Me Calm**__ ($1.99) Picture Me Calm is an affordable and easy to use picture schedule system. Although the app was created for children with autism, it also works well for "typical" children. Each child can have their own visual schedule specific to their needs and abilities. The schedule uses photos of the child performing the targeted tasks. Photos are saved to the "Picture Card Library" and then selected to create the schedule. Children can flip the picture card when the task is done, and choose a "sticker reward" at the end of the completed schedule. All reviews were very positive. Parents reported using the app for routines such as morning and bedtime. We use lots of changeable visual schedules with students at school. Keeping tangible pictures organized is a challenge! I think I'd love this app for ease of use with multiple children.

9. __**Timer + Touch HD**__ ($1.99) This is a visual timer app with a touch screen. The desired amount of time is set by moving your finger clockwise on the clock. The hours, minutes, and seconds are each color coded and this amount of time is also displayed digitally below the clock. There are 18 alarm ringers to choose from. The app continues to run even if another app is open, and pops up to let you know when the time is up. All reviews were positive. We frequently use a visual timer ($36!) in the classroom to let the children know when they can have a turn to do something, how long they must/can continue with a task, or when they must/can return to an activity. This app is much more cost effective and versatile than a battery-operated visual timer which can fall and break.

10. __**Speech with Milo: Sequencing**__ ($2.99) This is just one of the "Speech with Milo" apps created by a licensed speech-language pathologist. This app helps children develop sequencing and story-telling skills. 35 sequencing activities are provided featuring Milo, a mouse, and his friend Melvin, a racoon. Each story sequence presents three cards in random order. The child puts the cards in order by dragging the pictures into the appropriate box (1-2-3). Once the cards are in the correct order, there is an option to play the animation demonstrating the sequence of events. This app targets several language skills that we work on regularly in our preschool classroom: sequencing, time concepts of first, next, last, telling or retelling a story, increasing sentence length and grammatical structure, and improving speech skills.

"Wish List" of five personal apps: 1. __**Pocket Yoga**__ ($2.99) The Pocket Yoga app allows you to take your Yoga workout with you wherever you go on your schedule so you can continue with your workout on a regular basis. The app guides you through your Yoga session. You can choose from 3 different exercises at 3 different levels of difficulty and 3 different durations, so there is a lot of variety. Voice and visual instruction guides you through each pose and breathing exercise. The app also keeps a log of your Yoga practices and tracks your progress. I don't have a lot of experience with Yoga, but this app makes it easy to fit your schedule and skill level!

2. __**Unstuck**__ (free) This app is a winner of several "Best App" awards. "Unstuck is a brilliant app that coaches you through challenges to a better life." The app helps you identify what's going on with challenges at work, in a relationship, with a goal you can't seem to reach... It gives you tips on how to get "unstuck". This app intrigues me- kind of like personal therapy.

3. **__Photo Collage Creator__** (free) With the Photo Collage Creator you can create photo collages from the photos stored on your ipad's photo album. You can make collages in different sizes, choose background colors, crop and rotate the photos, and export the collage to Evernote or other app that accepts JPEG. You can send your collage in an email, share it on Facebook, or have it printed at Walgreens. Reviewers all loved it and used it a lot. I think this would be fun to make collages of events such as vacations or school field trips.

4. __**Solitaire ++**__ (free) This is a classic solitaire card game with several different options for moving the cards (drag, tap). The game is saved if you are interrupted. The reviews were all positive. I have never been a big card or game player, but think I should know how to play solitaire as it's a bit of a "thinking game" and a good option to fill some idle time- if I ever have any.

5. __**Pandora Radio**__ (free) First of all, Pandora Radio sounds great because it's free. It's a "personalized radio" that creates a list of music based on a few of your personal favorite songs and artists. I have not used this yet, but look forward to it, as I'm sure I will listen to more music more often with more variety.