Crick Software Releases Clicker Sentences & Clicker Docs for the iPad

Just today Crick Software released two new apps for the iPad, Clicker Sentences and Clicker Docs. Both apps are are great for supporting writing on the iPad and each one offers a unique set of features to support students in the writing process. Lets start with Clicker Docs, an easy to use writing program for students that need a variety of supports and scaffolding. When you first open up Clicker Docs you will immediately get a sense that Crick Software spent a great deal of time thinking through  the user interface and the user experience. Clicker Docs is very inviting and aesthetically pleasing to the eye and adds some real innovation in terms of the supports it includes.

Clicker Docs adds text to speech as well as word prediction which are just two of the supports which many students with learning disabilities can benefit from. Clicker Docs lets the user adjust the number of words to load into the word prediction tool. Starting out with a base of 250 words and going up to 60,000 gives students a wide array of words to choose from when doing written work. Students can turn on the SoundsLike Prediction feature on so that the predictor will suggest words that might be spelled phonetically. When I typed the sentence "I am using the fone," with the SoundsLike Prediction feature turned on, it did predict the "phone." Students can turn the Predict Next Word feature on and off and control the number of words that are predicted that appear above the keyboard. Students can listen to any of the predicted words by tapping on the Sound Shift Key and then tapping on the word. If you double tap the Sound Shift key-it will lock it, and then you can then tap on each and every word that is predicted to listen to it. The word prediction feature worked really well and is an important feature for lots of students that I work with, with writing disabilities.

Clicker Docs can also provide students with customized Word Banks which can add another level of writing support. Creating Word Banks is rather straight forward and easy to use. It is as simple as naming your grid and typing some words separated by a space. If you need to have two words grouped you can accomplish this by putting the words in brackets. You can also copy and paste text into the Grid Content dialog box which makes it easy to create from text you might have copied from the web. If you want to create a Word Bank with words that placed alphabetically you can do that by clicking on the Paste A-Z button. Creating Word banks is fast and easy and provides students with another level of support especially when they are writing a specific topic. Teachers can also quickly go out to LearningGrids directly from Clicker Docs to download and run new Word Banks that are available. This is a great resource and one that I know both teachers and students will love to use.

To get a feel for the Clicker Docs app I have included a screencast

Clicker 6 - A Whole New Game!

I have been meaning to write about Clicker 6 for some time now, but it has been an incredibly busy spring and summer and I didn't get a chance to sit down and reflect on the latest release. Truth be told I have been a big fan of Clicker for a long time now and with the current release I am even more excited with the potential of this program with students with a wide range of abilities. Having worked with a lot of assistive technology over the years one of the key criteria for me is that it has got to be easy to use. If it takes me awhile to learn how to use a software program then I know that it is doomed in the classroom. The latest release of Clicker 6 now includes Activity Wizards which make using the program a real dream. Just this morning I had the chance to use Clicker 6 with a student I was working with who had underlying cognitive and language disabilities and within seconds of selecting a Talk About Wizard I had developed a picture based activity that he could use to tell a story about the pictures on the screen. It was incredible just how engaged the student was and how exciting it was to see the expression on his teacher's face as he told his story. Using the Activity Wizard the activity was created within 15 seconds. In today's, fast paced classroom having tools at your disposal that can create rich curriculum based materials is more important than ever.

After I created this Talk About activity, I decided to create a picture to word matching activity to see if the student could match the pictures to the word. To create this activity, I selected the Matching Wizard, followed the on-screen prompts and selected the pictures that I had downloaded to a folder on my desktop. Again within 10 seconds my matching activity was up and running and the student could give it a try. The teachers were very impressed and were able to see just how easy it was to create the activity. Clicker 6 provides students with high quality text to speech supports and with the integration of the webcam, audio and multimedia it is my go to program for students that have a wide range of learning challenges. If you have not looked at Clicker for awhile I would urge you to take a look at the current release which has a lot to offer. I am planning another post to talk about the other supports that are now integrated into Clicker 6 namely, word prediction, switch support, and drawing tools. So watch for another post about Clicker 6 to be coming soon!