Assignment+3

Assignment 3

As the Director of Student Services and Special Education for the Medford Area Public School District I am leading an initiative in technology and 21st Century Skills for our students with disabilities and special education department. Medford has a long history of supporting assistive technology including our special education Core Assistive Technology Team (CATT) which is comprised of speech language, occupational therapist, physical therapist, and speech language assistant. It is exciting to use ARRA stimulus funds and flow through budget funds to support technology including promethean boards, additional student computers, and now Apple iPad technology for individual students with significant disabilities and special education classrooms. Teachers are using this technology for their own professional development use and in their classrooms. As such, I have been downloading a wide range of applications into our iTunes account to share on district iPads. I have attached a word document which has some of these applications. Below for this class, I have listed my own personal favorite application which can also be used by students.

[|Top Applications in Medford Area Public School District.wps]

I chose the application Tap Fish for my presentation to the class. I could have chosen a number of excellent applications that will help install learning for students such as Numbers, Pages, and Keynote which are the key iWork applications for students or teachers to use. iLive Math series of applications can help build up student excitement and curiousity into learning about math in fun ways like Speed, Animals of Asia, etc. Star Walk and Go Sky Planetarium can help build up student knowledge of astronomy. Proloquo2Go, Tap to Talk, and iCommunicate can help build up nonverbal and autistic students communication with others. There are plenty of early learning alphabet (Alphabet Fun) and math activities (Math Ninja) that can help teach or reinforce student learning. For my class presentation I chose Tap Fish.

Tap Fish might seem like an interesting choice, however, I enjoy this application and believe it can lead to a number of fun and educational activities for students. Students will be able to purchase aquariums and from there go to an underwater world of possibilities. Students will purchase fish, decorations, and backgrounds through coins (free) or fishbucks (have to purchase). More coins are obtained when the purchased fish are fed, loved, and tank is cleaned. As more coins are ordered, children can purchase more aquariums, fish, decorations, or backgrounds. Fish can be breed together to create new species. Fish can be renamed after students in the class. Students can also help clean and feed neighbor tanks. As you gain more coins, you advance to more levels gaining more access to different items for your tanks.

I like this application because it teaches children about responsibility in taking care of fish, how to budget coins and/or fishbucks in getting more items, inspires creativity in choose decorations, and teaches children about different types of fish. It is also an application that can be used everyday as the fish will die if not taken care of. I wish it didn't need internet connection to run the applications as I don't have wireless in each building, but hopefully that time will come or I can get wireless in each building.

All in all, a great application for students that they will enjoy. I have this application on my ipad and often students will ask to see tap fish and what new fish or tanks are on it. I have named several fish after my special education students like Gabe being a Great White Shark or Julia being a Bumble Bee Fish, they think that is so cool and the excitement in their eyes and smile on their face is priceless.

[|Tap Fish]