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Basic Sequences | ColorCards

By Spencer Riley | Updated on October 03, 2017

Rating 5.0

iPhone
Paid
age 5+

About Basic Sequences | ColorCards

A visually and audibly stimulating app aimed at students with speech and language difficulties (SALT). The app uses sixteen 3-step sequences of cards of differing everyday activities such as wrapping a present, making a bed. The student has to re-arrange the cards on the correct order. The teacher, speech therapist, teaching assistant or parent can give as much help as needed in order for the correct sequence to be made. The student’s verbal response can also be recorded. The app can be used one-to-one or in small groups and can be personalised by the teacher creating their own cards. There are 3 games to choose from Ordering, Predicting and Describing. There is a full reporting facility which can be emailed or shared. A separate account can be set up for each student needing only the basic of information. All of this functionality can be accessed via a single page settings page. There is a very comprehensively written in-app user guide.

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Basic Sequences | ColorCards Review

This app is aimed at those students with established or statemented educational needs requiring speech and language therapy (SaLT). Students are encouraged to not just put the sixteen 3-step cards in the correct order, but also to talk and explain what and why they are doing it. This can be done as a one-to-one or in small groups. The activity of each student both results and their audio file is also used as part of the assessment. The person supervising the activity makes the decision as to how much help the student needed with each sequence and needs to select the appropriate button to reflect this at the end of each 3-card sequence. When this sequence is completed there is a very nice visual reward in a short animated sequence of the cards performing sporting tasks.

The colour scheme is fully controllable via the in-app settings page. This is a very good function as some of the students may be already using colour acetates when they are reading printed texts. This helps immensely with helping each individual student engage in a way that they can control. What is also of great value is the ability to aggregate the reports in a number of way. It is also possible to fully customise the way app presents the cards to the student in each of the three sections of predicting, ordering and describing.

Within the settings is the ability to visit three social networks of the ColorCards suite of apps. This may be restricted when used in some schools as lots of schools tend to use a filter due to the age restrictions of the EULA of the social networks and to eSafety policies created to protect children and vulnerable adults.

There is no collaboration available within this app. This is a bit of oversight as collaboration is used quite a bit what is termed the flipped or blended classrooms. The use of collaboration could create a competitive edge to it. This is very good for engaging boys. Taken further collaboration could lead to gamification of the app itself. There could be a better sharing capability of the app through integration of a school’s own VLE/LMS or other system such Google Drive, Dropbox, Edmodo etc.

With regards to pricing the cost of the app may be a little prohibitive is bought on a large scale for an organisation. With this in mind the 50% volume purchase deal is of great value to any institution.

Having worked in a SEN school environment for a number of years I can only say that if an institution has iPad/iOS then they really should be using this app. It will engage their students and enable their educators to accurately plan the progression of their students.