Saturday, February 16, 2013

2 is Always Better Than 1

Two problems I have found using a tablet in therapy is that it frequently doesn't lend itself well to group therapy and smudges/sanitation. Here is my solution to both these problems.


A half-sized binder fits most 7 inch tablets. Because Android tablets are much cheaper than iPads, you  can buy two decent ones for less than the price of 1 iPad.  For instance you can by 2 Lenovo A2107s right now for $150 each.  These tablets have offline GPS so they can be used for GPS navigation without a data/WIFI connection (not available in iPads).  Another option is to get the Kindle Fire for $160 each. Two of either of these sturdy tablets are cheaper than the $329 for the iPad mini.

Both of these tablets should fit in a half-size binder. The binder protects the tablets from smudges and is easy to wipe off. Now you can do articulation therapy using Pocket Artic with one student and language therapy with a few others using the Irregular Verbs Fun Deck at the same time. Like many other apps, you can email the students results when you are done.

With either the A2017 or the Kindle Fire you can access the Amazon Appstore, providing a free app every day, several of these in the last year have been great for therapy (not available in iPads). There are plenty of speech and language apps in the Amazon Appstore (see my list of over 101) and with the A2107 you can access even more in Google Play. If you are not interested in either of these tablets there are 100's of other Android tablets available cheaper than iPads.

On top of all this, Bluestacks can be installed on Windows computers and run Android apps from the Amazon Appstore. Check back here next week for more details.  

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

77+ SLP Blogs

I have found 77+ SLP blogs and put all of them into Google Reader.  Using Google Reader, you can keep updated with all of these blogs at once here.

SLP Blogs


2 Gals Talk ...about speech therapy

Activity Tailor

all4mychild

ASHAsphere

blog

Blog | Erik X. Raj: Speech-Language Pathologist

Carrie's Speech Corner

Chapel Hill Snippets

Child Talk

Cindy L. Meester's Blog- Speech Therapy with a Twist

Cochlear Implant Online

Consonantly Speaking

Cooking Up Good Speech!

Crazy Speech World

Deaf Village

Dysphagia Ramblings

Early Intervention Speech Therapy

Easy Speech and Language Ideas

Eric's RSS Feed

Expressions Speech

Frances Evesham SpeechContacts Human Communication Blog

GeekSLP: Your source of educational apps and technology

Hanna B. gradstudentSLP

HearMyHands ASL

Heather's Speech Therapy

If Only I Had Super Powers....

In Spontaneous Speech

iSPeak App

Iteach2talk's Blog

Jill Kuzma's SLP Social & Emotional Skill Sharing Site

Language Fix

Let's Talk Speech and Language

Let's Talk Speech-Language Pathology

Lexical Linguist

listentalkdraw.com

Little Stories | Early Speech & Language Development

Live Speak Love, LLC

MedSLP

Mommy Speech Therapy

Ndnspeechmom

OliviaSLP

Pathologically Speaking

Pearson Speech and Language

PediaStaff Pediatric SLP, OT and PT Blog

Play On Words

Playing With Words 365

PrAACtical AAC

Say What, Y'all?

Smart Speech Therapy LLC

Smart Talkers:Talking about childen's communication from Small Talk SLT

Speech Gadget

Speech in the Schools

Speech Lady Liz

Speech Room News

Speech Therapist - Talking Talk

Speech Therapists Don't Get Apples!

Speech Therapy Ideas & Speech Therapy Activities

Speech Time Fun

speechie apps

Speechie Freebies

SpeechTechie- Technology, Apps and Lessons for SLPs and Teachers who like Words

Speechy Keen SLP

Sublime Speech

Talk It Up

teachmetotalk.com

Technology and Speech Therapy Corner

Testy yet trying

The Learning Curve

The Spectronics Blog

The Speech Guy

The Speech House

The Speech Ladies

Therapy and Learning Services, Incorporated - Blog: SpeechladyJen

Therapy App 411: App reviews by SLPs, OTs, and other special education professionals

Therapy Ideas Blog by Rhiannan Walton

TheSpeechPathWay.com

Thinking of a better blog name

TiPS: Technology in Practice for S-LPs

Topics in Speech and Language
Comment below if you want to get added to the list.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

SLP Android Apps in the Amazon Appstore

I have started a list of speech language therapy apps in the Amazon Appstore. Comment Below if you know of any to be added to the list.

Email to Autism iHelp

I downloaded the Android version of Autism iHelp – Play yesterday.  The home screen is not sizing properly on most of my devices. This app was tested on a LG DoublePlay, Lenovo A1, and Kindle Fire (1st Generation). The start screen only sized properly on the Kindle Fire. Access to games and options in cut off on my tablet and only the toys and outdoor activities are accessible on my phone. I tried both the Google Play and Amazon Appstore versions. Besides this major drawback this app works well. Thanks for storing the majority of the app on the SD card.  Let me know you fix the home screen and I will update my review on my blog and Amazon.

Roger Wagner CCC-SLP



Individual Client Tracking Sheets

I was cleaning out and reorganizing all the files in my computer and found two sheets I used track client data before I created my Caseload Data Tools.  One file is in Microsoft Word and can be downloaded here.
The other is an Excel file and can be downloaded here.

I figured out how to put all of my files in one folder (album) on ge.tt.  They are all here, but all the download counts have been reset to zero.  

Friday, February 8, 2013

Autism iHelp - Play

Name
Developer
Price
Free
MB
18.4
Type General
Language
Type Specific
Vocabulary
Operating System
2.2 or higher
SD Card
No
My Rating
««¶¶¶ (2/5)
Autism iHelp – Play is another Android App that the start screen is not sizing properly on most of my devices.  This app was tested on a LG DoublePlay, Lenovo A1, and Kindle Fire (1st Generation).  The start screen only sized properly on the Kindle Fire. Access to games and options in cut off on my tablet and only the toys and outdoor activities are accessible on my phone.  Besides this major drawback this app works well.  It provides flashcards with good pictures and voice output (which can be turned off if the options can be accessed).

The games feature is nice. It's too bad it only worked on the Kindle Fire.   It is a multiple choice game for labeling pictures where the audio is optional.



Monday, February 4, 2013

GoToApp


Name
GoToApp Demo/Full
Developer
District Data
Price
 Free/$2.25
Size in MB
 .5
Type General
 Utility
Type Specific
 App Organizer
Minimum Operating System
 2.2
Stores on SD Card
Yes 
My Rating
««««« (5/5)

If you are looking for an app to organize all your other apps look no further.  GoToApp allows you to create unlimited folders to organize your apps within. You can create shortcuts to the folders on your home screen or place folders within other folders.  Apps can be arranged alphabetically, or you can position them.  When placing apps in folders, they can be filtered into new apps or apps that aren't in a folder. You can try the free version, which is the full version for the first few weeks. All information is saved when switching to the full version. The app creator was quick to respond to questions.

Free Version Full Version


Friday, February 1, 2013

Email to Pocket SLP

Below is my Email to Pocket SLP
Dear PocketSLP,
I am enjoying your speech therapy apps for android devices.  I have a tablet and phone and am using both your Pocket SLP Articulation, and Little Jude Sky 1 apps.  I like them both, but have a few suggestions for improvement.  Many android apps let you store most of the app on the SD card.  Both your apps are over 20 MB. Please give your apps this feature, because I am running out of space on my tablet.
The Pocket SLP Articulation app works great on both my tablet and phone. It is by far the best articulation app I have found.  There are a few mistakes/glitches I have noticed while using the sentences feature though.  There are no sentences for ‘z’.  It just goes to the word level for both the word and sentence level.  
Some sentences aren’t really sentences.
  • One thousand kids.
  • The smoking volcano.  
  • The number four.
  • The number five.
  • A smoking volcano.
  • The number seven.

There are a few capital letter mistakes.
  • Look at the Chalk stick. (C)
  • The Orange is good. (O)
  • The Gorilla is mad. (G)
  • I bought some Art today. (A)
  • We went to oregon state. (o)

One sentence is missing an apostrophe.
  • The kitten lost its mittens. (it’s)

Two sentence missing a letter.
  • The went north yesterday.  (They?)
  • Buy some tomatos. (tomatoes)

One sentence missing a period.
  • Game starts with G(.)

The start screen in Little Jude Sky’s Very Strange Day Pt. 1 isn’t sized properly on my Lenovo A1 or my phone. “I can read” is hidden behind the “Cancel” and “Read” buttons on the tablet and completely inaccessible on my phone.  When the app is run in ‘Read to me’ mode on my tablet, there is a glitch on the fourth page if ‘window’ is selected for ‘moon’, the app consistently crashes and closes.
I really like your apps.  Fixing these problems and allowing SD card storage will make them even better.

Thanks,

Roger Wagner CCC-SLP