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From: Rhonda West
Date: 21 Oct 2011
Time: 17:48:53 -0500
Remote Name: 24.107.198.172
Excellent questions, Whitney. I'm not sure where if I can even begin to answer them adequately in a post or even if I have the technology experience to do so. Let's see how I can do: 1. I don't know that I can say they are more or less positive -- it just provides a different medium, and for some people (adults and children), a cartoon-like environment may make it easier to broach emotionally charged subjects. 2) Dvolver is a very crude little program. There are certainly more sophisticated programs/apps available, but they are also more difficult to negotiate. Dvolver was simple enough to let a fairly large and differentiated group of kids go at it with very little training. In fact, signing in to the computers and then emailing the final projects to me (so we could show them all at the group meeting) was the hardest part of it. I think in a therapy setting, where you can take age and computer-literacy into consideration, there are better choices out there. They change every day, though -- so look around, find a few you like, and dig in! 3) I use some smart board technology for concept/sound sorts. I don't use programs -- I use sites like Quia to build my own because I'm usually trying to build something specific to a particular therapy. I can't say I've seen any advantage over my more traditional materials, but the students look forward to the opportunity to use the technology. I don't any students on aug com at the moment, but the iPad and other tablets have amazing communicative potential, especially for adolescent and older students. I'm trying to find a way to work student blogging into some work I do with students. It could be an exceptional tool for helping some people who stutter or for any of our students who struggle with learning or communication differences, but again, at this time I haven't tried it. Do any other SLPs have something they can add?