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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WETech 2013 Presentation

I had the opportunity to present this past weekend at the WETech 2013 Conference which was a lot of fun. More than 150 educators attended the conference and had the opportunity to select from a vast array of exciting technology workshops during the course of the day. I presented on the topic of Supporting Students with Executive Function and Learning Disorders. The presentation focused on the rich array of apps that are now available on the iPad to support students who present with Executive Function Disorders and Learning Disabilities. During the course of the presentation I touched up a long list of apps that have enabled students to be more successful and productive in their schoolwork. Some of these included: Evernote, Clicker Docs, Read2Go, Voice Dream, Inspiration Maps, iWordQ, Remind101, iThoughts, and Penultimate to name a few. It is amazing how the field of assistive technology has been transformed by the iPad and going forward we can only imagine what the future will hold. One of the significant aspects of the iPad is that it can be personalized and customized to meet the needs of students with Executive Function and Learning Disorders. Below you will find my presentation deck that I used at the WETech 2013 Conference:

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

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Voice Dream Reader- Awesome Reading Tool for IOS

I know I may be a little late to the party- but in any case, I do want to share with you an awesome reading app, Voice Dream Reader for the iPad and iPhone which has a number of unique features which makes it a real stand out. I also want to thank Winston Chen the developer for contacting me and giving me the opportunity to review Voice Dream Reader. I had a great conversation with Winston the other day and we had a chance to talk about Voice Dream  Reader and where he saw it going. Voice Dream Reader has been very well received in the assistive technology arena and offers users a number of wonderful features at a very low dollar entry point.  Voice Dream Reader can be purchased in the app store for $9.99

First and foremost, Voice Dream Reader is an excellent app for reading a whole host of different formatted files which include: PDF, ePub, Text, Word, PowerPoint, Pages, Keynote, RTF, and HTML. Voice Dream Reader comes standard with the Acapella Speech Engine installed with Heather. If you would like you can add additional voices for a nominal fee right from within Voice Dream Reader for $1.99, for each additional voice. Voice Dream Reader has a clean and fluid interface which should take minimal training to learn how to use. To have Voice Dream Reader read text simply click on the play button on the bottom of the screen. Voice Dream Reader supports a number of fonts as well as the Open Dyslexic font as well as giving the student the option to change the size of the font and the color theme.When Voice Dream Reader starts to read the controls fade into the background allowing you to simply concentrate on the text on the screen. Voice Dream Reader will select the a line of text and highlight each individual word in yellow. You can quickly move about the screen by double tapping at a new location to start Voice Dream Reader reading from that point in the text. You also have the option for start reading text from a chapter, bookmark or highlight. Students can look up definitions, bookmark and highlight text on the screen which makes it invaluable for when students need to utilize the tool for studying and reviewing material. Voice Dream Reader integrates with Dropbox, Pocket, Instapaper, and Bookshare.

What is most impressive is that Voice Dream Reader now supports both Personal and Organizational Accounts, giving students who need access to their books an economical way to access them. I had a chance to download a book from Bookshare and it worked flawlessly. I really like the way Bookshare is integrated into the app giving students access to their books when they need them right within the program. Likewise, having integration with Dropbox is ideal and one that I applaud. With so many students saving their work in the cloud it makes it really easy to access notes and files which can be read from within Voice Dream Reader. If you haven't already done so I urge you to take a look at Voice Dream Reader-it is a great app and a great entry point.

I have included a screencast to give you an overview of Voice Dream Reader

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