I am currently using Clicker Books in a self-contained 6th grade life skills class where the students stay with one teacher throughout the day and the curriculum is modified for them. Students are functioning two to four years below grade level. Clicker Books allows us to differentiate lessons depending on the students’ ability level.
Students use Clicker Books almost on a daily basis, and they use it across the curriculum in Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. This app is wonderful for sequencing activities because it is so easy to use. For example, I created my own book on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the pages out of order, and the students had to re-sort the pages to put them back in the correct order. The students learned how to do this right away because the pages can be moved around so easily. If you forget a page, it is very easy to insert one and move it to where it has to go, instead of having to start all over again. Clicker Books is intuitive, simple to use, and gives the kids control by allowing them to choose their own formatting and make their books their own, which is what they really like about it.
We also use Clicker Books to review and summarize topics we have been studying in class. The students have created books on science topics, such as the digestive system, and science investigations, such as one about ice melting. They used Clicker Books to sequence the steps of the investigation, which involved predicting which type of material would keep an ice cube from melting when held under a light bulb. They wrote about the problem, their hypothesis, listed the materials and the steps, and their conclusion that bubble wrap worked best. They took photos of tables, graphs, the materials, and the different steps with their iPads and easily inserted them into their books.
Recently we created books about Ancient Greece, easily copying and pasting images to create the title page from the Internet, and then bringing in text from research. Currently, students are working on creating books about the Olympics. To create a page about Olympic judges, they gathered information on what judges did and what they wore, and searched Google images for pictures. Now they will have a book on the Olympics to help them with retention of the knowledge. Some students, depending upon their ability level, will just stick to the basics and others will expand upon the information we ask for.
Students can work with Clicker Books at any ability level and across all grade levels. All of our students need word prediction, which is another great feature within the app. What I like about Clicker Books is that it can be really difficult to get kids to re-read what they write. When they use punctuation, the speech support in Clicker Books will read what they wrote to them. They do not have to think about re-reading it because the app does it for them automatically.
There is no particular student who has been more successful than another; they have all been successful in their own way using the app. When students are using Clicker Books, they are totally engaged. We can get them to write.