Well, I did promise Eric, that I would put my favourite apps, I am partial to Apple products, you might have guessed when Oatie says "look at the apple mama" when he takes photos of me pretend or real... Luckily for you, he hasn't worked out how to upload the photos he has taken of me to his blog... PHEW! shhhh don't tell him!
Well, with all the faffing of the red tape and otherwise, we have decided just to buy him an Ipad2 and just get the ball rolling as he to me, is at a crucial point in his speech development, he's parroting everything and is trying so hard to communicate and be understood... and if you work out what he's saying, it just gives him a huge confidence boost.
A lot of them do have FREE versions, so you can trial it, but some free ones have all the features as paid ones, the informant you can upgrade by migrating it so you don't have to re-enter your data... well it was like that...
So here are my favourite Apps for the Caregivers! Apps for the kids I'll leave to the experts...
Just right click on the link and open in a new tab, so you don't have to go back and forth...
My first one is
1password:
This is so fantastic for me, I store our health card details, membership, credit card, library card, any sort of online activity here, you put in your extra password and can lock it down further to a master password and, once you're in, you press to log in to say the library or eBay or amazon it's fantastic... so if you hate looking around for your card or can't remember it's a great app, you can have auto lock so no chance of someone being able to see your sensitive info and you can also have auto wipe or remote erase I believe...
Timelogger:
I have just gone for the free version as I actually weirdly like the adverts. It's what I time my ABR with, and it's fantastic. I put all Oatie's exercises in and press start stop, and there is also a pause and it logs all the time and at the end of the session I just email it as a CSV excel sheet to my desktop voila! easy...
Blogbooster, you may have seen photos uploaded with blogbooster, annoying as they have really upped their selfbragging, but it's so easy, quick to use, you can pixel size the photos and sync it to your Picassa web album and it's totally easy and brainless... so often if I'm at home I might type on my desktop, and then go to blogbooster and upload the photo as it can be uploaded and done in 10 seconds. The only disadvantage is that the photos don't show up in the margin of other's blogs.... but for a huge time saving app, I love it and like it says you can blog on the go.
Iflow, I really like this one, it was under a different name but they have re-branded it... it's the classics but it's cheap or free... and you can have hands free reading, you can customise the speed, colour etc,... it's great if you can't watch Dora the explorer for the millionth time or just want to treat your child and get a read in too.
Informant, well I have to say I love it, I have my desktop synced with google docs which then syncs with my phone. no probs or hassle, and I ensured I had the auto sync at totally different times of the day. So super I can change an appointment on my desktop, shake my phone with the app open and it's all synced... or vice versa... (I'll let you know how 3 way syncing with the ipad goes... people have said it's been fine...) Informant has my calendar and to do list, and one one of the organised methods, I have set up my contexts which is the different type of shops, so as I need things, I put them in under the correct shop so when I go out with my limited time budget, I can just go, Costco... and all the things I'd like to buy are there in a list. or Fabricland, and all listed, it's saved so much time and got rid of the feeling arghghgh I forgot X.
Obvioulsy, Shazam, Shazam is better than soundhound, I've been trying both out simultaneously and Shazam is more accurate. What is a better way than having your ipod playing great tunes to help you treat your kid more easily...
Home Routine, this is based on the "Sink Reflections" woman, but I love it and you can customise it and I like the morning evening routine very much, love checking off those stars...
if you have other kids and need them to "comply" well irewardchat is fantastic, you can even calculate how many stars till they qualify for X.
Lifeplanner, this is the one that I said most other would find it useless, but I really like it, it's kept separate from my schedule and keeps me on track, like it bings 5 or how many minutes you want, to tell you that you have free time or you should be doing your chores... I often get carried away doing something else and I has made me more time savvy... I like it a lot.
If you have a home gym or go to one, Ultratimer is your app. You can put your very own work out in it and group workouts, so you can just chill and do your reps and it tells you (from what you programmed) what you're doing next, and you can play music from your library at the same time.
Spelling, if you have younger kids who all have spelling homework, well this app is fab as you put your list in, and say the word or they can, and then they can practise the spellings and it emails you how they did, so you can see which words need some work....
Grocery Gadget, I love it! you can just scan the items you want to add to your list and you can email it or sync it with someone else and they can whilst they are out go shopping for you with photos and everything.
Ohhhh and if you want to see how much time you WASTE!!!! well this app is for you, you start and stop the time of your chosen list Eat dinner and you can see how much time you spend doing what. The worst bit is that it can't lie or fudge it so it is what it is... It's called Timerific
Well these are my favourite apps for being organised with a special needs kid...
Love Oatie's Mum
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oh and we got 3:05 of ABR in on Monday and 2:32 today.
Well, with all the faffing of the red tape and otherwise, we have decided just to buy him an Ipad2 and just get the ball rolling as he to me, is at a crucial point in his speech development, he's parroting everything and is trying so hard to communicate and be understood... and if you work out what he's saying, it just gives him a huge confidence boost.
A lot of them do have FREE versions, so you can trial it, but some free ones have all the features as paid ones, the informant you can upgrade by migrating it so you don't have to re-enter your data... well it was like that...
So here are my favourite Apps for the Caregivers! Apps for the kids I'll leave to the experts...
Just right click on the link and open in a new tab, so you don't have to go back and forth...
My first one is
1password:
This is so fantastic for me, I store our health card details, membership, credit card, library card, any sort of online activity here, you put in your extra password and can lock it down further to a master password and, once you're in, you press to log in to say the library or eBay or amazon it's fantastic... so if you hate looking around for your card or can't remember it's a great app, you can have auto lock so no chance of someone being able to see your sensitive info and you can also have auto wipe or remote erase I believe...
Timelogger:
I have just gone for the free version as I actually weirdly like the adverts. It's what I time my ABR with, and it's fantastic. I put all Oatie's exercises in and press start stop, and there is also a pause and it logs all the time and at the end of the session I just email it as a CSV excel sheet to my desktop voila! easy...
Blogbooster, you may have seen photos uploaded with blogbooster, annoying as they have really upped their selfbragging, but it's so easy, quick to use, you can pixel size the photos and sync it to your Picassa web album and it's totally easy and brainless... so often if I'm at home I might type on my desktop, and then go to blogbooster and upload the photo as it can be uploaded and done in 10 seconds. The only disadvantage is that the photos don't show up in the margin of other's blogs.... but for a huge time saving app, I love it and like it says you can blog on the go.
Iflow, I really like this one, it was under a different name but they have re-branded it... it's the classics but it's cheap or free... and you can have hands free reading, you can customise the speed, colour etc,... it's great if you can't watch Dora the explorer for the millionth time or just want to treat your child and get a read in too.
Informant, well I have to say I love it, I have my desktop synced with google docs which then syncs with my phone. no probs or hassle, and I ensured I had the auto sync at totally different times of the day. So super I can change an appointment on my desktop, shake my phone with the app open and it's all synced... or vice versa... (I'll let you know how 3 way syncing with the ipad goes... people have said it's been fine...) Informant has my calendar and to do list, and one one of the organised methods, I have set up my contexts which is the different type of shops, so as I need things, I put them in under the correct shop so when I go out with my limited time budget, I can just go, Costco... and all the things I'd like to buy are there in a list. or Fabricland, and all listed, it's saved so much time and got rid of the feeling arghghgh I forgot X.
Obvioulsy, Shazam, Shazam is better than soundhound, I've been trying both out simultaneously and Shazam is more accurate. What is a better way than having your ipod playing great tunes to help you treat your kid more easily...
Home Routine, this is based on the "Sink Reflections" woman, but I love it and you can customise it and I like the morning evening routine very much, love checking off those stars...
if you have other kids and need them to "comply" well irewardchat is fantastic, you can even calculate how many stars till they qualify for X.
Lifeplanner, this is the one that I said most other would find it useless, but I really like it, it's kept separate from my schedule and keeps me on track, like it bings 5 or how many minutes you want, to tell you that you have free time or you should be doing your chores... I often get carried away doing something else and I has made me more time savvy... I like it a lot.
If you have a home gym or go to one, Ultratimer is your app. You can put your very own work out in it and group workouts, so you can just chill and do your reps and it tells you (from what you programmed) what you're doing next, and you can play music from your library at the same time.
Spelling, if you have younger kids who all have spelling homework, well this app is fab as you put your list in, and say the word or they can, and then they can practise the spellings and it emails you how they did, so you can see which words need some work....
Grocery Gadget, I love it! you can just scan the items you want to add to your list and you can email it or sync it with someone else and they can whilst they are out go shopping for you with photos and everything.
Ohhhh and if you want to see how much time you WASTE!!!! well this app is for you, you start and stop the time of your chosen list Eat dinner and you can see how much time you spend doing what. The worst bit is that it can't lie or fudge it so it is what it is... It's called Timerific
Well these are my favourite apps for being organised with a special needs kid...
Love Oatie's Mum
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oh and we got 3:05 of ABR in on Monday and 2:32 today.
errr, thanks I think. Although I've had apple computers in the household since 1990 the last one I got was about eight years ago. Ipad, Iphone and all that good stuff is way expensive over here. I wish Segev could use an ipad but with zero motor control all his life... (what about the eyes? hmmm, maybe..)
ReplyDeleteAnyway I will repost this to the facebook group and hopefully others can find benefit.
Eric
I read Eric's comment and do not know if Segev has volitional control of his eyes, but there are free programs for a PC which use a mounted or built in web can that tracks eye movements and uses them to move a cursor on a computer. The software is free: cameramouse.org and most gaming and ed programs are also free. It's used extensively at the Boston College Campus school
ReplyDeleteYikes, I just wrote a Mel-book and it disappeared!
ReplyDeleteWell, fortunately or unfortunately for you... I type fast...
Well, I was thanking you both for your comments and it's never quite the same writing it the second time... lol!
You guys are just so lovely...
Eric, You are so lucky, it took me 10 years to convince my techie computer boffin husband to go for a Mac.... he writes computer code.. and well last year he got a macbook.
If you ever went for one the itouch is the cheapest and has the same functionality as the iphone but without the phone part, and you can have it as an ipod too.
Phil, you are a gem, that is so thoughtful of you to say about Camera mouse.
Well, you have my curiosity/intrigue going, as I have no idea ipad with our kids to be honest, to date, Oatie has played on a few apps on my phone but not really used it as his device.... so it's going to be a learning curve for us all.
Well since reading your comments I have sent off a few emails enquiring (yes the UK spelling) about eye recognition as I don't know and with the forward facing camera it might be something that could be available soon I guess.
Till then, there is:
http://atmac.org/ they empower people using apple products with disabilities.
and.... a blog that I like to follow:
http://babieswithipads.blogspot.com/
I know that Adam and Sergev are both young Men (and not babies) but they do have some super info on there about devices and people rate them...
This time I'm copying what I have written... Sending hugs and love to you and your families,
love
Mel
xxx