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StoryBuilder for iPad

Mindprint Rating

Tags

ELA: Reading ELA: Writing Elementary School iOS App

Skills

Expressive Language Organization Verbal Reasoning

Mindprint Expert Review

Pros

  • Users must use clues from the pictures to compose stories, thus this app highly targets skills such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, making predictions, and cause/effect relationships.
  • The audio features coupled with prompts in Level 1 and 2 exercise auditory processing.
  • When stories are complete there is a save and email feature, so users can share their work with others.

Considerations

  • The instructions seem overwhelming at first due to their length, and young users may have difficulty understanding them without adult supervision.
  • Users cannot edit their work after it is finished.
  • One of the stated purposes of the app is to improve paragraph formation, but users are not shown textual elements at any time. An improvement in the app would be the addition of a text--to--speech feature so users could see the paragraphs they create.

Mindprint Expert Review

Story Builder for the iPad is a decent app that invites users to create a spoken story about a single picture. Three levels in this app transfer independence in developing the story by first using prompts to guide students to reveal literary elements and then later removing all prompts. The app does not evaluate a user’s work nor notify a user when it is time to progress to the next level. This app is best for young writers who have adult supervision to ensure it is used correctly. While not for everyone, this app would engage young users that may have difficulty composing narrative stories, writing creatively, or making inferences and predictions while reading.

Academic Benefits

Improves academic skills

  • Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
  • Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
  • Presents educational concepts accurately
  • Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
  • Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
  • Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
  • Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

Fun

Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range

  • Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
  • Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
  • Visually appealing to children in the target age range
  • Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
  • Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
  • Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
  • Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

Easy to Use

Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range

  • Has a free or trial version
  • Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
  • Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
  • Student should be able to use independently after first use
  • Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
  • Multiple users can save a profile
  • Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
  • Can play without sound and not distract others
  • Students can save work between sessions
  • Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
  • Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
  • Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
  • Overall - Easy to use

Cognitive Concerns

May not be advisable for students with the following cognitive needs

  • Processing Speed
    • Requires scanning in multiple places for words, objects or numbers
  • Spatial Perception
    • Requires scanning in multiple places for words, objects or numbers
  • Verbal Memory
    • Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
  • Working Memory
    • Requires scanning in multiple places for words, objects or numbers
    • Directions may be confusing for students using independently
    • Audio is not clear or voice is robotic

Manufacturer Description

Winner - Best reading app of 2011 by the Huffington Post. Own as an individual app or as part of our MES Speech Therapy Bundle.

Story Builder is designed to help children accomplish the following educational goals: 1) Improve paragraph formation; 2) Improve integration of ideas; and 3) Improve higher level abstractions by inference. Extensive use of audio clips promotes improved auditory processing for special needs children with autism spectrum disorders or sensory processing disorders.

Story Builder offers a rich and fun environment for improving the ability to create a narrative.

FEATURES
-Record feature allows students to record narrative in their own voice
-3 levels of play
-Simple and intuitive interface to record narrative
-Recorded answers are stitched together to create complete narrative
-Stories can be archived for later play
-Each student gets their own archive page
-Stories can be emailed
-50 distinct story lines to create narrative from
-Import photos from camera or library
-500 audio clips of questions to guide narrative
-Optional question text and answer introduction reinforcement

LANGUAGES
- English

REQUIREMENTS
- Compatible with iPad
- Requires iOS 4.2 software update

StoryBuilder is part of "The Builder Series" of award winning education apps. Mobile Education Store has won over 40 app awards and has been named educational developer of the year in 2011 and 2012.

Mobile Education Tools is a member of Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers seeking to promote quality apps for kids and families.
Recommended Ages: 6-10, 10+
Categories: Special Needs