iPad App Review: Sago Mini Doodlecast

Sago Sago's Doodlecast is a creative app for any child ages 3-8 who likes to draw pictures and tell stories.  This app is particularly helpful because each picture in the app is a question, thus creating opportunities for a child to work on their expressive language abilities, especially their ability to answer "WH" questions.  See the picture below:

The app also has a video feature that allows the user to record the visual and auditory information within each drawing activity.  Please see video below:

How to adapt this app for a child with special needs:

For a child with special needs, this app would require quite a bit of facilitation from a paraprofessional, parent, caregiver or teacher.  However, when this app is presented appropriately to meet the child's accessibility needs, the child with special needs might have quite a bit of fun using this app.  Here are three very general ways to adapt the instructional design of this app for a child with special needs:

1. For a child who uses picture cards to expressively communicate, consider using a picture card app on the iPhone to help the child answer the questions.  Possibly consider embedding the child's picture cards within the app, especially if the child is unable to draw.

 2.  For a child with physical accessibility and communication limitations, consider using the child's AAC device with appropriate icons to answer the question with an appropriate array of choices.





3. Make it a social experience for everyone.  Pairing a child up with a peer to complete these sort of creative activities would make the use of these technologies three dimensional.  In the end kids want to have fun with their peers. With the use of the appropriate instructional design mentioned above, this app could be a positive social experience for both peer and student with special needs.

How would you adapt this app for your child or student with special needs?  

Zot Artz: Adaptive Art for All

Photo courtesy Zot Artz

I was surfing around the internet last week looking for new ideas to use for assistive technology in some art activities with some of my clients this week and I came across Zot Artz.  These artists are thinking outside the box as they approach low, medium, and high tech solutions to increase students with special needs' to access the visual arts.  Please check out their catalog and video below.  As an artist my self, this sort of outside the box thinking bridged with assistive technology makes me excited for what other ideas are out there.

Check out how they have adapted the way kids paint in wheelchairs in this  video (link below photo):

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

Check out more of their creative and adaptive products in the photos below and their product catalog:

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE WHOLE CATALOG HERE

iPad App Review: Art Maker

Art Maker, developed by ABC's PlaySchool, is a great app for children to increase their visual motor skills while also developing their ability to tell stories and create.  Finding apps for kids with special needs that encourages creativity while also embedding language and fine motor abilities is a real find.  The child with good finger dexterity can easily manipulate photos of  real objects into 6 backgrounds including: a beach, bedroom, farm, kitchen, moon, or underwater.  For the child with special needs that requires assistance completing more creative, abstract activities, Art Maker has a feature that allows users to take a photo from their own album as a background to bring app characters into their world. Students can go further and create movies by animating the characters in their scenes to their own narration and songs.  Teachers and parents can also encourage sequencing and storytelling opportunities by making a story slideshow using the child's pictures and animations.