Looking for new ways to work on categories?!! Virtual Speech Center has a way! They created a brand new app called Factory of Categories and was generous to provide me with a copy to try out and share with you! Remember, the thoughts and opinions are all mine!
Like their other apps, you can alter the settings to meet your needs. You can access this feature on the main screen or during the activity. Here you can enable score sounds, decide the amount of correct or incorrect sounds, random paging, and whether or not to show the score (some students benefit from this feature and others focus too much on it and can take away from their work). You can also back up and restore data (highly recommend you back up regularly for any app that allows you to store data! You will cry if you lose any data!).
You can add students to this app (yes, multiplayer/students feature! Great for school SLPs working with groups!). It is so easy to add students! Just hit “add student”!
Once you add the students, select the ones you want for that session, then touch “next” to begin!
Next, you can select the activities for each student. You can have all students working on the same activity or different. This is great for differentiation. I know from my experience, my students never notice when they are doing different activities!! Most of the time, they can benefit from observing their peers working on their tasks! Ok…what activities are included?!
- Where does it belong?
- Name this category?
- Which does not belong?
- Add one more that goes with the rest
- Jewelry
- Holidays
- Musical Instruments
- Boys' Names
- Snacks
- Food
- and so much more!
- Easy to use and navigate
- Multi-user and can differentiate without students noticing
- You can select the pace! You click “next” when ready! Want to discuss incorrect responses or challenge students when they are correct, you can!
- Score reports and progress monitoring
- Provides images with text. Great for poor readers!
- Ability to edit and design the lesson appropriate for your students.
- Many activities in one app! Receptive and expressive tasks!