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.
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.
Thanks for this post. I may just be the last SLP out there without an iPad for the very reason that I'm still trying to figure out what type of tablet will work best for me. I do already have an android phone so I was leaning toward and android or Kindle Fire but I haven't made up my mind yet. My one question is, do you find it difficult to program and use an android tablet? I am not computer savvy so any help in this area would be really great!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only SLP who doesn’t have an iPad. There are some of us who are using Android tablets. I have recently met 2 other SLPs who aren’t using a tablet yet, so that means there are at least 3 SLPs without tablets :-). I don’t know what you mean by program. I just review apps, I don’t create them. If you mean set up, I have found my tablets very easy to set up. Most apps are fairly user friendly.
DeleteThere are lots of tablets to choose from, too many for me to reply in a comment. I will be posting an Android tablets purchasing guide in my blog shortly, so check back soon.
Thanks for sharing your valuable information with us, it's very useful to me!!
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