All Critical Thinking (app review!)

Are you looking for more apps to use in your speech room?  How about ones to work on critical thinking skills? All Critical Thinking is an app that will help!

I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to check out the “All Critical Thinking” app by Virtual Speech Center.  I just love all of their apps and was excited to find out that they developed a brand new one.  Although they were generous to provide me with the opportunity to check out this app so I can share it with you, remember the thoughts and opinions are all mine!

If you are familiar with Virtual Speech Center's apps, this app has a similar feel in terms of setting up and adding students' names.  This made it very easy to figure out and the set up was super quick!  I just added all of the students that I plan to use this app with right away so I don't have to do it during my speech session!  Once you add the students, just click on the ones you plan to use that very session, and click “next!”

For each student selected, you can select activities.  I love that you can individualize this app to each student in the group.  You can do this ahead of time or quickly without your students even seeing that you are picking different targets per student.  However, I would recommend the students knowing their individual goals!  It will help with them understanding why they are in speech and what they are working on.  I love that the app has identifying and stating options for receptive and expressive language goals.  Look below at the choices:

I love that the app is at the paragraph level, perfect for my older elementary students.  I love that you can have an audio presentation of the paragraph and the answer choices.  This is great for my students that are poor readers.  The text makes them follow along, but the audio helps with making sure they are decoding correctly.  The app won't even let the student select an answer until the entire passage is heard and all answer choices are heard as well.  I love that students can click the “repeat” button!  I am always teaching my students to ask for repetition when they need it so this app incorporates this strategy.  This app also has a record and play back button so students can record their responses and self correct/analyze.

I love that you have the option to “add a note” by clicking the page looking button on the left hand side.  This is great for just jotting down reminders within the app.  You can note how many prompts, the visual cue that helped the student, how many times they needed repetition, or even the strategies they were using independently.

I love that you get to determine the pace of the activity.  You determine when you are ready for the next task and can click “next.”  This allows for learning time and you do not feel rushed.  As students get their answers correct, they earn a puzzle piece.  After 5 correct responses, student will be asked if they want to play a puzzle game.

You can either continue until you complete all 15 items in a skill set or click “finish” when you are done.  At that point, you will be taken to the session report.  Here you will see the reports for each student, the task worked on, their score, and any notes that were made during the activity.  You can also email the report from this page.

You can also always access reports by clicking “reports” from the main page.  I love that you can sort by user and by goal or date.  This helps locating reports easily!

Here is a view of the settings that you can alter based on your needs:

What do I love about this app?

• Perfect for older students!  There isn't much out there for older students!
• Perfect for mixed groups.  You can work with multiple students and each of the having their own activity.
• Love that you get to set the pace
• Love that receptive and expressive language skills are addressed.
• Love that it is at the paragraph level!
• Love the data collection!

Want to learn more about this app?  Visit iTunes by clicking HERE!