#1. Great Text-to-Speech: We found the Triple-Click Voiceover function the easiest to use. It allows you to switch text-to-speech on and off, and you can use it for IBooks, email, websites, and magazine apps like Flipboard. You cannot use it for Kindle, Stanza, or other ebooks, at least not yet.
#2. Great Speech-to-Text: Free apps are available for Speech-To-Text so you can dictate notes, tell the computer to search the web, with presets for Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, and Twitter.
#3. Great Apps for Kids, Magazines, and EBooks: Great learning apps for early readers, early writers, spelling and math practice, and magazines and various formats of digital books. We're still choosing our favorite dyslexia kids apps, but already we can see that the iPad's combination of game play, customizable format (font size, color, visual crowding), and kinesthetic movement makes for an ideal learning tool. Because it's so easy to combine sight and sound for text, it means that dyslexics of all ages can 'read' up to the level of their verbal ability.
#4. Laptop Substitute: Lighter than a laptop, and cheaper than most laptops, but can do a lot of work of a laptop. Apps give the Ipad tremendous versatility. If you're worried about the lack of a keyboard, check out the Ipad Airbender Keyboard from Amazon.The wireless keyboard is in a open-up case that holds the Ipad. Very handy. If you don't like to draw with your finger, buy a cheap stylus.
What Are the Top Ipad Apps for Dyslexia? This list may change over time, but here are 5 great apps for starters -
#1. VoiceOver / Ibooks / Web: FREE Not exactly an app, but function you should turn on with Triple-Click (Settings > General > Accessibility> Triple-click Home (bottom)> VoiceOver - Toggle VoiceOver). To set speed, click the VoiceOver tab on the Accessibility page. The speaking rate varies from slow (turtle) to fast (rabbit). Activate Voiceover when reading an iBook or webpage by triple clicking the home button. You can select a line or paragraph or if you want it to read the whole page, sweep 3 fingers down).
There are many app sources for books - including iBooks and Stanza. VoiceOver doesn't work with the free Kindle app, though!
#2. Dragon Go! - FREE This is a new app that allows you to speak what you're searching for on the web - so Google, Wikipedia, Youtube are defaults. You can also search for maps (using the location function), Twitter, and more.
#3. Dragon Dictate - FREE Handy for taking down memos and short notes, it still can make errors with background noise or mumbled words - but all-in-all pretty good! If Dragon Dictate is too inaccurate for your speech, you can add in a Voice Memos app which will just record your note as audio.
#4.Note-Taking Apps - Soundnote ($4.99) and PaperDesk ($2.99) Soundnote basically turns your iPad into a Livescribe pen. It's great for notetaking because the audio is time-locked to your typing and drawing. If you want to use your iPad as a laptop, you might want to buy a keyboard and stylus, unless you prefer to write with your finger. PaperDesk has more options than Soundnote - like inserting photos, importing pdfs, organizing pages into notebooks, option to export to a whiteboard, but its interface can be more complicated. Our son tried both and ended up preferring PaperDesk.
#5. Flipboard Magazine Social Media - FREE We really like Flipboard's social media-magazine app which takes RSS feeds, news sites, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and converts them into a visually attractive and easier-to-read magazine format. Because reading lines are shorter and text is support well with visuals, we found it much easier to skim and read. VoiceOver does work with Flipboard artilces.
Other handy Business / Student Apps: DropBox (FREE - 2GB) (which allows you to share easily share files between your iPad and computer or laptop), Instapaper ($4.99 (save to read later- has font size and style options), Good Reader ($4.99) (draw on pdf files), and Paperhelper ($0.99) (allows students to type on your iPad while looking at a page). Audible (FREE) is a good app if you belong to Audible.com for their recorded books. Also there's Time Timer ($1.99, visual timer), Idea Sketch (FREE, mind mapping app), and My Homework (FREE, homework organizer).
Promising, but needs work apps -OverDrive Media (FREE- good for library ebooks, not yet integrated well for audiobooks) and Learning Ally ($19.99) can't download books directly from your iPad.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment