Presented at the Teacher Meetup NJ 2013 Unconference Today

What other profession do you know of, that would sacrifice a whole day for professional development without pay? Welcome to the world of teaching and the un-conference model which is turning the world of professional development on its heels. Today more than 200 teachers arrived at Richard Stockton College for a full day of professional development with a focus on educational technology . The day started off with a Kidspiration Maps and iReadWrite. Both programs were very well received and offer students a great deal of support in the area of written language.

series of quick 20 minute presentations by teachers on all kinds of interesting technology topics. I presented in one of the 20 minutes modules with a focus on reading and writing apps for struggling students. In the 20 minute time period I was able to demo the recently released apps:

If you have't taken a look at the Kidspiration Maps which was recently released, I urge you to do so. It incorporates a great deal of features which adhere to the concept of Universal Design for Learning. Kidspiration Maps allows students to use text, pictures, and audio recordings to express their ideas. Teachers will love the way they can give students audio instructions and students will just love the colorful library of high quality vector based graphics. For those of you who like to kick the tires, their is a lite version of Kidspiration Maps that you can download and test out.

iReadWrite offers students a great set of tool for writing which includes word prediction, text to speech, dictionary, and homonym checking. This is a powerful app with exceptional word prediction. Please take a look at my complete review of iReadWrite which I did when it was released.


In the afternoon I was fortunate to be able to present with Mike Marotta a long time friend and assistive technology specialist where we delved into the accessibility features on the iPad and had a chance to take a look at some of the other apps for students with reading and writing disabilities. During the course of the day we demoed: CoWriter app, Clicker Docs, Clicker Sentences, Inspiration Maps, Book Creator, Voice Dream, Learning Ally app, and AudioNote. This was a great day of presenting and our participants went home with a new appreciation of how the iPad could be adapted and used in the classroom to better support students.

I have been using a new tool called Edcanvas which is a great way to share information and links which I showed today.

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Clicker Docs for iPad Updated to Version 1.2

For those of you who are using Clicker Docs for the iPad it was just recently updated to version 1.2 and some really nice features which include:

Clicker Docs- Large Size Prediction Bar & Word Count

What's New in Version 1.2

- Option to set a bigger size for the Predictor/Spell Checker suggestions
- Improved predictor performance
- Improved hardware keyboard support – predicted words, spell checker suggestions and SoundShift button can now be accessed while the virtual keyboard is minimized
- Word count added to Document menu
- Thumbnails of Word Banks are shown in Explorer, Favourites and Recents
- When adding a new grid, this is now inserted after the current grid
- New View & Edit option when pasting text in Edit Mode – makes it even easier to create an A-Z Word Bank from any piece of text
- The language (British or American English) is still set automatically when the App is first used, but this setting can now be changed
- More pronunciation improvements

I for one am very happy to see that the you can now change the size of the Predictor/Speller Checker bar which should make it easier for students with visual or fine motor disabilities to select words from the predicted list. Likewise, it is now easier to use the word prediction feature when a student is using a Bluetooth keyboard. i also like that students can now get a word count and some overall stats on what they have written. All in all, this a very nice upgrade and I would suggest that you go to the apps store and upgrade your copy of Clicker Docs.

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Exporting your Clicker 6 Grids to Clicker Docs

If you haven't updated your copy of Clicker 6, I would highly advise it- especially if you are also using Clicker Docs and Clicker Sentences on an iPad. One of the really nice features of the recent update to Clicker 6, is the ability to export your grids to Clicker Sentences and Clicker Docs. The process could not be any easier and it is a great way to re-purpose your grids so that they can be used by students on the iPad.. You can see from the screenshot that under the Clicker Set menu there is now an Export Clicker Set for App option. Once you select either Clicker Sentences or Clicker Docs- the grid is automatically saved in your Apps folder within your Dropbox account. In this example I created a grid with text from the book Call of the Wild in Clicker 6 and then Exported it to Clicker Docs. Now once in Clicker Docs on my iPad, I can click on the Folder icon on the Top Left and Select Dropbox to see the Grids that I have Exported. Now all that is left for me to do is select  "Call of the Wild " and I am ready to use the words. It really is that easy to do. Give it a try you will be glad you did! To update your version of of Clicker 6 click here.

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Crick Software Releases Clicker Sentences & Clicker Docs for the iPad

Just today Crick Software released two new apps for the iPad, Clicker Sentences and Clicker Docs. Both apps are are great for supporting writing on the iPad and each one offers a unique set of features to support students in the writing process. Lets start with Clicker Docs, an easy to use writing program for students that need a variety of supports and scaffolding. When you first open up Clicker Docs you will immediately get a sense that Crick Software spent a great deal of time thinking through  the user interface and the user experience. Clicker Docs is very inviting and aesthetically pleasing to the eye and adds some real innovation in terms of the supports it includes.

Clicker Docs adds text to speech as well as word prediction which are just two of the supports which many students with learning disabilities can benefit from. Clicker Docs lets the user adjust the number of words to load into the word prediction tool. Starting out with a base of 250 words and going up to 60,000 gives students a wide array of words to choose from when doing written work. Students can turn on the SoundsLike Prediction feature on so that the predictor will suggest words that might be spelled phonetically. When I typed the sentence "I am using the fone," with the SoundsLike Prediction feature turned on, it did predict the "phone." Students can turn the Predict Next Word feature on and off and control the number of words that are predicted that appear above the keyboard. Students can listen to any of the predicted words by tapping on the Sound Shift Key and then tapping on the word. If you double tap the Sound Shift key-it will lock it, and then you can then tap on each and every word that is predicted to listen to it. The word prediction feature worked really well and is an important feature for lots of students that I work with, with writing disabilities.

Clicker Docs can also provide students with customized Word Banks which can add another level of writing support. Creating Word Banks is rather straight forward and easy to use. It is as simple as naming your grid and typing some words separated by a space. If you need to have two words grouped you can accomplish this by putting the words in brackets. You can also copy and paste text into the Grid Content dialog box which makes it easy to create from text you might have copied from the web. If you want to create a Word Bank with words that placed alphabetically you can do that by clicking on the Paste A-Z button. Creating Word banks is fast and easy and provides students with another level of support especially when they are writing a specific topic. Teachers can also quickly go out to LearningGrids directly from Clicker Docs to download and run new Word Banks that are available. This is a great resource and one that I know both teachers and students will love to use.

To get a feel for the Clicker Docs app I have included a screencast

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