Educational APPS

[TIOAOA]

I've been asked by our SEN department to look for some educational APPS - be they app store or play store that would be useful for KS1 / KS2 SEN pupils, Maths Spelling and anything inbetweeen.

 

Can anyone - especially if your SEN based recommend some early years stuff please

[Primus]

Sorry but I'd be going back to your SENDCO and saying this what they're paid for - their SEND expertise and experience. How can you recommend apps to them if you're a technician?

 

Unless I've misunderstood and you're not a tech?

Edited September 18, 2019 by Primus

[TechMonkey]

Sorry but I'd be going back to your SENDCO and saying this what they're paid for - their SEND expertise and experience. How can you recommend apps to them unless if you're a technician?

 

Unless I've misunderstood and you're not a tech?

 

Agree. Send them a link to the Play and Apple store. They should have the contacts and resources that will suggest what will be good. You will end up making a massive list and them just saying they aren't suitable.

[DJ-1701]

Agree with the others here, it's a job for SENDCO to investigate apps that they feel will be useful for students under their care.

 

That being said, these are some of the Apps our SEN team have asked for in the past:

 

5 Letter Spelling FREE

Learn English ABC Alphabets HD

Sentence Builder for Special Needs

Sleepy Kitty

Dyslexia Quest

High frequency words

Chimp Fu Syllables

Hairy Letters

[steveg]

I put some ipads into our year 1/2 nurture class this week, and the initial list of apps they asked for was:

 

maths bingo word bingo shark No’s mighty maths 2 odds or evens maths facts subtilising dominoes easimaths magnetic abc

[Brimstone]

I've been asked by our SEN department to look for some educational APPS - be they app store or play store that would be useful for KS1 / KS2 SEN pupils, Maths Spelling and anything inbetweeen.

 

Can anyone - especially if your SEN based recommend some early years stuff please

 

Tell them..(and I say this to all teachers that ask this question) THEY are the best app in the classroom, their content knowledge, their teaching skills. Whilst there are a few good apps that subject specific they should be using ones that can be used across the entire curriculum. The accessability tools (Dyslexia Screen support. speech to text, zoom etc) are built into iOS so this alone would help them, not that these can cover every specialist learning need.

 

This site has a lot of good links but includes features of iOS to use in a SEN environment

 

https://www.iaccessibility.com/apps/

Edited September 19, 2019 by Brimstone

[DrBeaker]

Sorry but I'd be going back to your SENDCO and saying this what they're paid for - their SEND expertise and experience. How can you recommend apps to them if you're a technician?

 

Unless I've misunderstood and you're not a tech?

 

Agree. Send them a link to the Play and Apple store. They should have the contacts and resources that will suggest what will be good. You will end up making a massive list and them just saying they aren't suitable.

 

Agree with the others here, it's a job for SENDCO to investigate apps that they feel will be useful for students under their care.

 

That being said, these are some of the Apps our SEN team have asked for in the past:

 

5 Letter Spelling FREE

Learn English ABC Alphabets HD

Sentence Builder for Special Needs

Sleepy Kitty

Dyslexia Quest

High frequency words

Chimp Fu Syllables

Hairy Letters

 

Tell them..(and I say this to all teachers that ask this question) THEY are the best app in the classroom, their content knowledge, their teaching skills. Whilst there are a few good apps that subject specific they should be using ones that can be used across the entire curriculum. The accessability tools (Dyslexia Screen support. speech to text, zoom etc) are built into iOS so this alone would help them, not that these can cover every specialist learning need.

 

This site has a lot of good links but includes features of iOS to use in a SEN environment

 

https://www.iaccessibility.com/apps/

 

+4

 

I think this is the right approach. Too often we're all trying to be helpful to staff but it backfires on us. E.g. It ends up as something they didn't want, or get told it's not possible, miscommunicated by them etc then we get accused of being unhelpful etc and it's all downhill from there.

 

These comments above are spot-on. The SENCO is trained and experienced (I assume) in this area, not IT personnel.

[Ditto]

+4

I think this is the right approach. Too often we're all trying to be helpful to staff but it backfires on us. E.g. It ends up as something they didn't want, or get told it's not possible, miscommunicated by them etc then we get accused of being unhelpful etc and it's all downhill from there.

These comments above are spot-on. The SENCO is trained and experienced (I assume) in this area, not IT personnel.

I tend to agree, you have to be careful with advice here - you need to judge the person asking. The variety of personalities I've met who are SENDCO's has always amazed me - from those that are mad as hatters, yet brilliant with the most challenging pupils to the quiet studious academic type. So not from a tech point of view, but personal as a parent of a child diagnosed with dyslexia, as someone involved in school governance and supporting where possible all education, I will mention just one, which is a bit more than an app. https://www.nessy.com/uk/. From more than one source, this came highly regarded. One of the biggest challenges here of course if there is so much out there and finding what you want even if you are targeting a known need is very challenging. Do SENDCo's have forums akin to Edugeek, but for their profession?

[DrBeaker]

I tend to agree, you have to be careful with advice here - you need to judge the person asking. The variety of personalities I've met who are SENDCO's has always amazed me - from those that are mad as hatters, yet brilliant with the most challenging pupils to the quiet studious academic type. So not from a tech point of view, but personal as a parent of a child diagnosed with dyslexia, as someone involved in school governance and supporting where possible all education, I will mention just one, which is a bit more than an app. https://www.nessy.com/uk/. From more than one source, this came highly regarded. One of the biggest challenges here of course if there is so much out there and finding what you want even if you are targeting a known need is very challenging. Do SENDCo's have forums akin to Edugeek, but for their profession?

 

True. Not every solution here is going to work for the wide variety of schools and areas.

 

Not sure to be honest though, I suspect SENCOs have more of a support network than us IT pros, probably get to go on more training courses and spend time with other SENCOs in other schools.