My position as an OT and an AT coordinator requires me to work with teachers and students from 4K to high school. Although most of the iDevices we currently have are dedicated to younger special needs students or students in multi-categorical classrooms, we will be getting iPads for some of our LD teachers at different grade levels to use. Thus the search begins for appropriate apps for teachers and students at the middle and high school levels. Here are just a few apps that I consider useful for middle and high school  LD students as well as a few other resource lists of apps suited to these grade levels:

Pen Cast Player – Livescribes app that plays Echo/Pulse pen audio and handwritten notes created into a pen cast. Pen casts can be played on the Internet through Livescribe Educational Pen Casts, linked to your web page or in a Pen Cast on your iPad or iPod Touch.

Miriam Webster Dictionary app – On the iPod, iPhone or iPad, the Miriam Webster Dictionary provides Dragon Dictation to record (mic at top to right of the search box) and translate your spoken word into a typed text that is automatically looked up and defined. The word can be spoken aloud using a high quality voice.

By selecting/touching a word in the definition,  the app will open the dictionary to that words definition. Navigation arrows at the top menu bar allows you to move back and forward to words you have looked up. The app allows you to review recent words and collect favorite words. If you touch a word in the definition it will look that word up in the dictionary. Although it does not read the definition a loud to you. Using the Triple -click voice over function allows text to speech of the definition.

This is a great app for individuals with spelling problems allowing them to speak a word for look up in the dictionary!

Dragon Dictation – Voice recognition software on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Speak into your devices and have your speech transcribe via cloud computing to text. The text can be copied, emailed or texted.

Read2Go App – Bookshare’s mobile app for iPod and iPad. Read2Go allows downloading Bookshare books directly to the apps. Read2Go provides text to speech,bookmarking and along with other tools to access the books and textbooks to those who qualify (those with print disability).

Where can you find more apps for middle and high school students for iDevices? Here are a couple of lists of apps for older students worth checking out:

Here is a link to a list of 100 iPad Apps Perfect for Middle School students that I stumbled upon. The apps are categorized by subject area. Many apps are familiar but there are many new apps to peruse to see if they fit you or your students needs.

Another list, 10 Essential iPad apps for High School Students provides a few more productivity, math, reference and history apps worth checking out.

So if you work with older students or their teachers here are some resources to check out!

Carol