Inspiration Maps

by Inspiration Software, Inc.

Inspiration Maps was the featured app at the October building meeting.  This is the iPad version of the popular desktop concept mapper, Inspiration.

Concept mapping makes use of position and space to convey relationships, connections, and hierarchy.  What makes this app so powerful is the blending of digital features with the portability of a pencil and a notebook.

Our favorite feature is the ability to change a cell shape using the camera function on the iPad.  Now a concrete representation of a real-world concept can be included in a map.  Examples include pictures from a story, real life items that are being categorized, or part to whole relationships for complex items.

We rate Inspiration Maps a must-have for all classrooms.  Critical thinking by students begins with teachers modeling the thinking.

First Then Visual Schedule

by Good Karma Applications, Inc.

First Then was the featured app at the September building meeting. The app provides a way to create custom multi-modal (text, audio, and visual) schedules that are easily referred to throughout the course of the day due to the portability of iDevices.

While First Then was designed as a schedule support, we found other uses for its sequential nature as well:

• Any task analysis, from recipes and toothbrushing to solving long division
• Directions to a location (like a pre-programmed GPS!)
• Student or teacher created audio-books
• Sentence starters/Answer frame for composing essays

We definitely rate First Then Visual Schedule a must-have for every classroom with iDevices.

Welcome to Rare Apps

The intent of this blog is to collect and share resources for the teachers supported by the Assistive Technology team for our special education schools.  We hope this collection is useful to all visitors to the site and we welcome your comments or questions.

Recommended Apps Reviewed for Education (RARE) are iOS applications that have already received Working List approval for use on iPads in the classroom.  Apps that are selected for inclusion on RARE have been further examined by the team for accurate content, practical application to educational settings, and accessibility.  Rather than being an exhaustive list of all educational apps, RARE seeks to identify the best educational apps.

Stephanie Swan
Assistive Technologist, Speech-Language Pathologist

Eric Carson
Assistive Technologist, Special Education Teacher