Visitors to the School-Ready open house last week were treated to interactive iPad stations with volunteers ready to share information about favorite apps for academics. Our come-and-go event featured teachers from the Arbor School, T.H. Rogers, The Caroline School, and Alvin ISD who volunteered their time to showcase favorite apps and ideas for how to use them in a differentiated classroom. Therapists from Easter Seals Greater Houston demonstrated apps for therapeutic and home use with children who have a variety of disabilities.
The highlight of the evening was an appearance from iPads4Autism’s Chris Benson, who along with Be an Angel Foundation, presented an award of 5 iPads to teachers Camedra Jefferson and Carolina Cano of Lanier Middle School. The iPads will be utilized in the Structured Learning Class for Autistic students in the upcoming school year. Ms. Jefferson and Ms. Cano participated in a pilot program with BridgingApps using iPads with students who have special needs in the spring 2012. BridgingApps is grateful to iPads4Autism and Be an Angel Foundation for providing iPads to enhance the lives of students with severe disabilities in Houston schools.
Participants also received an orientation of the BridgingApps website and how to use the custom-built app tool Insignio to search for apps, save searches, create lists and share lists. Insignio allows users to:
• Search for apps based on special needs criteria
• Save searches to be run later
• Create lists of apps
• Publish lists publicly or privately
• Search other people’s publicly published lists
• Provide feedback on apps for other users to use and stack rank in search results
For a list of apps demonstrated at this open house, please click below:
http://bridgingapps.org/list/?id=44015