This week is Part 2 of our series on Assistive Technology and supporting all learners. Our guest, Judy, has returned to speak a little more about some awesome tools that will benefit all students, particularly those with learning difficulties.

In this episode we speak about Fluency Tutor, Book Creator, Screencastify, Reader Pens, and more. These apps and/or tools are all forms of assistive technology, and while they are particularly ideal for our students with IEPs, the rest of our students would benefit from these tools as well.

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Show Notes
Our guest today is Judy Sackville, an assistive technology lead. Connect with Judy on Twitter. Did you miss part 1? Listen here.

Assistive Technology Tools

• Fluency Tutor - TextHelp product; Reading Assessments - you can assign levelled text and have students record their reading; paid version provides ability to track progress with running records
• Interactive Games via Google Slides - great for motivation and engagement
• Book Creator - great for students with early literacy needs as support for them at their developmental level. Ability to add images, text, audio, and video to a page. 
• Screencastify - we love it and so does Judy! 
  • Have students create tutorials or training resources for others. 
  • Check out Episode 2 for more details. 
  • Have students create problem-solving videos to explain their thinking.
  • Use it as an overview video to connect with your students.
  • Use it as a presentation tool for students to record themselves.
  • Make screencasts of your lessons - use the webcam feature to humanize it!
  • Screencastify Submit - still in beta. No prices on their website yet but they do say they will have a free plan as well as an unlimited paid plan.
• C-Pen Reader Pen by Scanning Pens - scan across text and the pen will read it out loud! Also includes audio note feature, scan to file to upload to computer later or connect via USB for immediate transfer, and dictionary. No wifi needed! Also great for ELLs.
• Bitmojis
  • Create a bitmoji classroom to provide a humanizing aspect to the classroom. Increases engagement too.
  • Check out the bitmoji classroom facebook group.
  • Create feedback stickers using Google Drawings and your Bitmoji!
  • Create custom banners for Google Classroom or your LMS
  • Play peek-a-boo in your slide decks
• EquatIO - TextHelp product; it's like Read & Write for math, speech-to-text

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