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I really must thank all of you here to share some wonderful ideas/ apps here!
I am really excited to create kahoot for my students to play against virtual players as he always loses out to his classmates as he needs more time to process the questions. I think he will be thrilled to win in the upcoming Kahoot! :)
I am also going to try out classroom screen to see how it plays out! Will update soon!

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I get to know of the Natural Reader App during my CLASS session.  It is a powerful Text-to-Speech on the go.  You can upload text and documents or convert to mp3 to listen to anywhere anytime.  We can drag and drop files, or type, paste, and edit text.  Then we can choose the speed for the text to be read out.  We can also choose from 3 different type of reading voice.
As all my students are having their personal device, this is a useful tool for them to work on their homework, revision and to prepare for their oral.

https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

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Free Text to Speech Online with Realistic AI Voices

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Convert text into ultra-realistic audio. Have any text read aloud with AI Voices. AI text reader for pdfs, books, documents, and webpages.

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Recently I got the chance to work with the core prefect team to organize a program for the school.

I was quite surprised to see that the students are actually very knowledgeable of most of the online tools that we have come across.

However, they do not possess the critical thinking skills needed for choosing which online tool will help them achieve their objective for the program.

I was able to discuss some elements such as the suitability, the audience, logistics which this module has touched on and help guide them in choosing the online tools most suitable for their use.

It also makes me wonder even if students know about all the online tools and technology, how can we teach them to use what is most efficient and effective.

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Reflecting on the Past Tech
Been using NearPod and Kahoot for games segment during the lessons but getting the students to work on the soft skills can be challenging at times with iPads. Sometimes, connectivity takes up some time of the lesson and students will be waiting for their peers to bring up a new bag of iPads. Hence, there are times my go-to technology would be PowerPoint where I will create games and have them printed out for use during lessons. Through these physical tools, the objective of the lesson was met and I could have students work on interacting with their peers and helping them too. Not only that, a single game board created can be used across lessons meeting different objectives of a similar topic!

Welcoming the New Tech
I haven't gotten the chance to use some of the apps shared but Classroomscreen is something I am already planning to use when I return to school on Wednesday. I like how I can transfer from having to toggle between different tabs (e.g. random name generator and countdown timer) to having everything on a tab. (It actually serves as a reminder for me too because sometimes I just forget things...)

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I just chanced upon this app last week called 'Points', which can be used as an online token-tracking system where specific tasks or behaviours (both good and bad) are assigned to a child or group of children. Users can select to assign either positive or negative points or both in accordance with the desired or undesired behaviours specified. Rewards can be decided or selected (3 from the app) to serve as a reinforcement after collecting a set number of points. I'm still in the midst of navigating around this app and plan to recommend it to the parents of my students with ASD in monitoring and reinforcing their child's behavior at home, especially during the recently announced HBL Period for Primary School students.

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Everyone

Contains ads

Offers in-app purchases

Points app
helps parents and teachers in dealing with kids in a modern, special and simple way. It teaches your kid how to achieve, commit and organize by giving the kid daily tasks, encouraging and motivating them through positive and negative points. Gifts will be as a reward by collecting those points.
* Add the gift or kind of privilege you want to give to the kid.
* Kids can see and follow their brothers and friends points to compete with them.
* Mom and Dad are able to add points where ever they are.
* Via their phones, mom and dad can add and control points and tasks to their kid.
* Teachers can use Points to motivate children and communicate with parents.
* Nice, clear and helpful charts to show the kid pints and tasks, weekly, monthly and yearly.
* You can rest all points anytime.
Points helps parents by organizing kids' time and teaches the importance of time management and good deeds.

privacy policy
https://points4kids.life/en/privacy-policy.html

Additional information

Karagümrük mah. Fatih, 34091 Istanbul, Turkey.

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Points - Behavior tasks rewards - Apps on Google Play

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Everyone Contains ads Offers in-app purchases Points apphelps parents and teachers in dealing with kids in a modern, special and simple way. It teaches your kid how to achieve, commit and organize by giving the kid daily tasks, encouraging and motivating them through positive and negative points.

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[Smart TV] Ready-Made Graphic Organizers & Manipulatives, Interactive Widgets and "Shout It Out!" Activity

The school provides a Smart TV for most classrooms and I have one in mine. I usually use either the Smart TV or projector for my lessons. But, I realise there are many functions in Smart TV which can help make my lessons more engaging and interactive, and I can actually use them together.

There are ready-made graphic organizers, which I usually spend time creating instead, interactive widgets which students can use to respond and at the same time, encourage participation, and the "Shout It Out!" activity, which is similar to Mentimeter where I am able to gather students' responses.

I will need time to explore these interesting functions and I would think that it will be able to help me incorporate them in my lessons as it is convenient for me and I can use them at the different stages of my lesson. I am looking forward to try out the "Shout It Out!" activity first and use it as a form of Exit Ticket or a question board where students can pen their thoughts or ask questions about the lesson during the designated time, without feeling threatened since the responses which are shown on the board would be anonymous. :)

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My colleagues and I used this platform to replicate the Workplace Numeracy assessment that our students sit for at the end of the year.

This allows us to mentally prepare our students on how the assessment will be like just so they won’t have an outburst while sitting for their assessment.

The reason for having Lectora is that normally in class, the questions that our students normally do will be in a form of paper and pen but for the assessment, it will be done using computers.

My colleagues and I had to collect all the question banks that we have and upload it on this rather tedious and technical platform so that our students are able to adapt to the assessment environment.

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Interactive White Board (IWB) vs Interactive Smart TV (ISTV)

My school has both of these boards in school. They work in almost the same way but with some features than the rest.

IWB

SMART Notebook app - which has a variety of functions including making games and interactive slides

Compatible with Microsoft Word, PDF and PowerPoint (I use these most often in teaching).

Has a "tray" with buttons that users can press to change functions i.e. cursor - pen - eraser.

Uses normal stylus pen, any tip that is not too sharp or even the fingers.

Both laptop and board needs to be updated on a regular basis so that there are no compatibility issues.

ISTV

SMART Notebook app - which has a variety of functions including making games and interactive slides

Compatible with Microsoft Word, PDF and PowerPoint (I use these most often in teaching) if the USB cable plugged in and working.

No tray with buttons to change. Users need to use a sharp tip (non-ink) pen; closed fist to erase, blunt tip pen/stylus or finger to highlight.

Both laptop and board needs to be updated on a regular basis so that there are no compatibility issues.

Overall, I've used both boards before and they have their pros and cons.

For IWB, the main issue in school now is that the IWBs are not updated regularly and checked for compatibility with the laptops that staff are using. Quite a few times, I had to go down to the IT staff to get things fixed or updated.

As for ISTV, one issue I encountered is that when I do not have a sharp tip pen/object available to write. Another issue I face recently was that the functions went a little off - I could write with my finger but couldn't highlight. It might get frustrating at times.

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I have tried using the accessibility features on the iOS device with my colleagues and students. My students are all equipped with an iPad each and so it makes perfect sense to introduce them to this function so they can use it should they find it useful. The feature that I have shared with my colleagues and my students is a feature called "Spoken content", which when activated will allow the iOS device to read out texts and passages on demand.

One great feature of this "Spoken content" is that users can opt to have the content highlighted as the iOS device reads out the content. The users can also select the voices and find out that speaks naturally like a native English speaker.

Students who have difficulty with reading fluency will benefit from this and they can have more independent and frequent fluency reading practices at their own time.

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Since the PSLE is coming soon and the primary school students will be going on FHBL soon, I needed a quick no-fuss and customisable platform to work with a P6 student who struggles with retaining math concepts.

I decided to tap on the utility of PowerPoint to make attractive math questions to be sent to my student over WhatsApp every evening. I could insert pictures, highlight keywords and vary the colours of the background to make each question "feel different" and less like a duplicate of math questions. After a few evenings, I also customised the slide size so that they are in portrait mode, making it easier and more immersive for my student to refer to when he is reading on his phone.

The connectivity of WhatsApp means that the student has a choice on when to do the questions in the evening and once he has completed the questions, he would take a photo of his work and send them over to me. If there are mistakes, I could explain to him over text or over a quick phone call.

Together, the utility of PowerPoint and the connectivity of WhatsApp gives me a convenient platform to reach out to students even in the period of FHBL.

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A student of mine can answer comprehension questions verbally but always reacts with great resistance when it comes to translating verbal responses into written sentences due to her difficulty with spelling. To circumvent the spelling barrier, I transferred comprehension questions to Google Docs and tried its in-built voice typing tool with this student. She seemed shy and wary at first but complied willingly after I modelled a few trials.

The biggest drawback of this tool lies in issues with accuracy. Transcription errors are most likely to occur when the student does not speak very fluently and clearly. It is best to activate voice typing only after the students has rehearsed the answer a few times, as repeated transcription errors can be discouraging and turn the student off. Before the accuracy issue is fixed, this tool is probably not the best choice for students who struggle with both oral and written expressive language (e.g., those with language disorder).

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I wanted to try out Popplet after Kamila shared about it a couple of weeks back. I finally got the chance to live-test it with my student with language impairment. He loves owls, and I thought about using Popplet to help him better answer questions relating to similarities and differences (an area of weakness for him).

I suspect that I had more fun than him during the activity, as I was busy trying to figure out how to make use of the application. He was more keen on getting back to his book. However, I do note that he was able to answer higher-order questions (such as, what are owls good at) quite independently. I hope this means he was able to see connections through the visual representations in the mindmap. I feel that this way of drawing connections for him is something well-worth exploring, and I will continue using this mindmapping tool with him.

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Last week my ICT department bought XP-Pen (writing tablet) for all teaching staff including the AEDs. The purpose was to ease teaching and work after listening to the teachers' feedback on their difficulty writing using a mouse for zoom whiteboard and/or Googlemeet Jamboard. Although I had not got the desktop engineers to install for me as priority was given to teachers, I look forward to use it as I had seen my husband use a writing tablet for his teaching and work. I even explored ideas in my head on how I can teach literacy skills such as (syllabication and spelling rules) using the writing tablet. The department even supplement a video for us to self-learn before they scheduled for online workshop for us.

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I have been using PocketPhonics Stories with my lower primary students who have mild GDD and reading difficulties. This app, which is used to reinforce their learning, is a step-by-step reading programme where students will learn how to blend letter sounds through letter writing and word games. PocketPhonics also allows students to read through simple stories created at their level. If they get stuck, students can tap the word to get help sounding it out. The e-books get progressively more challenging, but the students will not realise it as they get better at reading.

Plus point, both teachers and parents can easily monitor the students' progress online. More on PocketPhonics Stories (and what the full version has to offer) here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pocketphonics-stories-full/id882249080

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I have been using this app called Bitmoji which can be downloaded into your phone. Bitmoji is like your personal emoji and you can create different expressive cartoon avatar. It allows us to customize our characters as well. The Bitmoji expressed the different emotions together with the body language. I have used it to teach students to identify emotions/feelings. It is an interactive and fun tool to teach communication skills in terms of emotions/feelings. You can use it to make your student’s personal emoji which you can incorporate into the social story for your student as well.

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When it comes to collecting data during behavioural observations, Insight App is one of the convenient tools to use to record. It replaces the traditional recording forms (I save the trees too!) where I can customise the interval length and even behaviour labels - to ensure each observation is for a specific student. The settings are easy to use, with the data recorded can be translated into % automatically and exported to PDF for our report purposes.

Oh. And it's FREE.

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A couple of weeks back, our school ICT dept sent an email announcing that the school has subscribed to Classkick Pro. I have not had time to explore the App till now. I think there are now so many tech tools and applications and I do wonder if it is necessary to have students learn and use so many different platforms. Hence, what I did first was to watch some of the YouTube videos on the features that make Classkick different from Nearpod or SLS.

Classkick has many functions and features  similar to the other commonly used applications such as various manipulatives, uploading of existing powerpoint teaching resources, embedding videos and links and others. After a brief exploration, I think some of the better features of Classkick in my opinion are:
a) teacher is able to see the real time working progress of each student
b) students can ask for help by raising hand "virtually" and teacher is able to monitor the students' work and give immediate feedback without having to be physically next to the student
c) students can help or learn from their peers when teacher assign the roster and activate the peer helper mode.

I feel that some of the features can be so useful for our students with Special Needs, for example, there can be closer monitoring by teacher and students are able to "raise hands" without worrying about other classmates' opinion, etc.

I still need more time to explore (so many useful guides and tips on YouTube) but I think I am already quite sold. I would definitely incorporate this for use when I plan for my lessons for next year.

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I tried out using Quizlet. Quizlet is a study set creation tool for students and teachers. It is an easy tool to use and also can be used as an interactive platform.

You can create your own flashcards/study set and also convert these flashcards you created for your students into different modes of learning and quizzes using the ‘learn, match, spell, test, etc.,’ tools.

Quizlet is also a digital pop-quiz database. It offers 300 million study sets with a wide range of subjects and question styles. It allows you to create your own study set or clone and edit those of others.

I find it useful for my students as some of my students always have trouble revising as they have difficulties summarizing their notes, breaking them down into point forms, and recalling them. Thus these tools will allow them to do that. They can also do self-revision by using the different learning styles tools and help them test for their understanding. And the best part, they can study or revision on the go using their hp.

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I discovered Screencast-o-matic this week as my colleagues and I were planning to curate interesting videos for our students for Children’s Day. This app is awesome, it’s free and very user-friendly; editing the video is as easy as clicking and dragging the length of footage to cut. Moreover, it has a generous number of free music clips to create a ‘professional touch’ to the videos.

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I know that it is a fun and engaging platform for students but it makes sense to use it for a sizeable class. What about in pullout support setting with just 1 to 2 students, as in my case?

I tried for the first time to create an activity on Kahoot and it is for a solo learner in my pullout session. I have decided to tap on the fun and competitive elements for this student for a few reasons:
1) he is diagnosed with SLI and I try to make my lesson reach out to him through the multisensory way
2) he is into computer games and motivated to improve on his skills as he sees his progress on the scoreboard
3) now he is learning to recognise the 12 months in a year, which can be boring and dry but an essential skill for him

Using a Kahoot template, I created the questions to review what he has learnt and also to introduce the new ones. The template and questions can be changed/adapted as he progresses. It helps in overlearning. In a way, it also serves as a progress monitoring tool.

One hidden gem in playing Kahoot that I found is this feature - "start a single-player game with virtual players". So my student had fun playing Kahoot and getting the excitement from competing against the "imaginary rivals" even though he is the only learner in my class!

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Tried out Classroomscreen and Wordwall this week. I wish I found time to curate pictures to add to the words in Wordwall but I will have to leave it for another time. I think that might help students recall the words better.

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This is not something I tried during lessons in school, but something I discovered while walking around at the new Woodlands Bus Interchange. The interchange has been made into an inclusive interchange, with features like barrier-free boarding and alighting areas, as well as graduated kerb edges to make boarding and alighting easier for passengers in wheelchairs and parents with strollers. There are also barrier-free toilets, priority queue zones with seats, and a nursing room to cater to the needs of the less mobile, elderly and families with young children. A commuter care room is also set aside for special needs commuters who need access to a quiet and calming space.

What was interesting was the incorporation of NaviLens, catered for the visually handicapped. If you have been there, you would notice colourful QR codes that can be scanned with the NaviLens app, which then reads out directions aloud to the user. It is nice to see Singapore's efforts to be a more inclusive society. I'm not sure whether other places in Singapore have adopted this, but if you ever find yourself in Woodlands Bus Interchange, you can have a go at it! (:

More on NaviLens here: https://www.navilens.com/

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Storyboard that for Comic Strip Conversations

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Storyboard that is an electronic comic strip maker that allows us to create customised scenarios. The extensive library of images and characters allow students to 'see' the situations that they encounter in daily settings in comic form. I tried it with students with ASD and they loved the interface, it also works with students who are not as good in drawing but having difficulty in expressing their thoughts as well. I also shared some visuals with the parents of the child with ASD and she finds it useful as a reminder for her child at home. As it allows snipping, that also reduces the time required for scanning hard copies/digitalizing. Do give it a try!

Storyboard That: The World's Best Free Online Storyboard Creator

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Using WAKELET as a teaching tool.

Wakelet works similar to Padlet (for those of us who uses a free Padlet account, heh, and running out of the free 9 pages that we can 'open-up'..) I recommend using Wakelet as an alternative!

For this session, my topic is social conversation; how to join, start, maintain and end a conversation appropriately.

I still use PPT slides as my main learning tool, and this Wakelet is used as a supplementary. Using the Moodboard format, I inputted in all the main learning points in here, so that it eases the students to be able to have an overall view of the learning umbrella for the day. I am also able to input in videos and links (my exit ticket is also parked there). How is Wakelet used:
1) overall summary of my important teaching points (students with SEN have tendencies to forget and difficulty with linking and summarizing; hence this tool can enable them to visually see the 'agenda' for the day as well as the parked important points for ease of them to revisit anytime)
2) linked videos, websites and forms (it can be used as a portal to park all related information, and is interactive for the students as they can be involved to answer the Google Forms as well as input in their work as well)

Students have feedback that they understood the lesson better with Wakelet all-in-one view; I reflected that perhaps my prior lessons were solely on PPT slides and usually having 10 slides and above for the students were difficult and daunting for them to process. At the end of the day, it will be hard for them to internalize the main learning points and remember key details. Since slides are still necessary, I decided to supplement it with Wakelet so that they can open up this window on their Learning Device and track their learning along as I teach. This breaks up tasks for them and enables chunking of learning. Teacher and student active ratio is also more equivalent now; they are better engaged and involved in their learning when they have ownership to open up the interactive links/websites/videos.

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ClassPoint is an add-on to PowerPoint with enhanced features that provide teachers creative ways of interacting with their students.

ClassPoint is another good tool for enhancing presentations or delivery of a lessons by allowing interactions between teacher and students on their mobile devices with the ClassPoint's web app.

There are many features such as MCQ, quizzing, live annotations, whiteboard collaboration, real-time polling, submission of drawings; just to name a few.

Example of using polling, teachers could do a quick "dip test" to check on students' understanding of the lesson taught. Making the necessary adjustments to their teaching based on the data collected at realtime by ClassPoint.

Additionally these data could also be saved together with the presentation's slides for after lessons evaluation and used in subsequent lessons planning.

Check it out here:  https://www.classpoint.io/

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I get to be exposed to this technology as it was used as a game activity during Teacher’s Day celebration in school. The application is pretty easy to use. Once you set the Study set of the key concepts you want the student to learn, you just need to select the set of activities that you will like the student to do to practice the key concepts. There is whole range of game activities that you can set such as word search, flashcards (With voice recording), jigsaw, draw n guess, etc.

You can also upload slides and video that you want to them access independently as part of the learning path that you designed for them. You can also have check points to check on their learning and select different mode for them to express such as Voice recording, photo, MCQ, draw. You can have all the different expression mode available and set that you only require 1 expression from the student.

During facilitation of lesson, if the teacher wants to get some quick response from student, he/she can launch “responses” and choose the type of response needed (text, draw, placemarker, quick poll, photo, upload) when the students are in the middle of completing the activities.

Teachers can also set questions in the path and uses tools such as randomizer or buzzer to select students to answer the questions.

Teachers will get the report of all the submitted response.

What I like about this application is that you can have a range of activities planned and sequenced for the students to access without moving from one application to the next. E.g the need to switch from powerpoint to a game from other application.

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​Screencasting is a digital recording of a computer screen output that is often paired with audio recording. Screencasting can be used as a teaching tool from traditional classroom settings to a single learner environment. Some examples of screencasting are onscreen tutorials e.g. website navigation, online troubleshooting,  slide presentations and video lessons that require step by step instructions e.g. solving Maths equations, calculations, essay planning and writing . The list is not exhaustive.

I used Screencast-O-Matic which is a free screencasting and webcam recorder to create my presentation slides or video lessons directly from my laptop screen. I will share it on YouTube to prevent lagging when downloading if it is in mp4 format. What I find interesting in using Screencast-O-Matic is the simplicity of it. The recordings that I make can be uploaded straight to YouTube. All I need to do, is present the YouTube link to my viewers and they can view it with any personal device they have. This is beneficial for students with learning disabilities. This tool allows these students to learn at their own pace by watching it in segments where they can pause to internalise it. The beauty is that they rewatch again as many times as they like. I prepared this for my students in my physical absence.