Ballyland Magic and Ballyland Rotor, as presented at the SPEVI 2017 Conference
With these fun apps your students and you can learn how to use iOS mobile touch devices by way of VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader for iOS devices.
Ballyland Rotor is Sonokids’ new iPad game app, teaching children who are blind or have low vision the concept and touch gestures for the ‘Rotor’ in VoiceOver. With a variety of stories, sounds and songs, it is both highly entertaining and educational. The app not only supports children’s understanding of the concept of selecting options and settings by way of the Rotor: it also offers them a safe platform to explore and practice the different ways the Rotor gesture can be performed. This learning process can be further enhanced with a 3D print model of Ballicopter, Ballyland’s little red helicopter, with a propeller on his head. The file to 3D print Ballicopter yourself is a FREE download.
The Rotor is used to change how VoiceOver works, for instance, to increase the speech rate.
As the Rotor is a relatively advanced concept and gesture, it is recommended to first play Ballyland Magic. This game app has demonstrated great value in supporting the development of blind children’s general touch gesture skills and conceptual understanding of VoiceOver. It was great for me to hear the success stories of conference delegates who had already used Ballyland Magic with their students.
All information can be found on the Ballyland website and you can get the apps from the App Store.
Price: only 4.49 AUD / 2.99 USD. Recommended age: 6+
These apps have been added to the ‘Technology and Apps’ resources on the SPEVI website, at http://www.spevi.net/technology-and-mobile-devices/
kind regards,
Phia Damsma
Creative Director Sonokids Australia
phia@sonokids.com
www.ballyland.com
From Jen Croaker:
I found this in the latest Sense magazine and thought it might be useful for blogs – OMAA, SPEVI and ICEVI and anywhere else it might be usefuI is a toolkit on play for children who are deafblind or who have multiple disabilities.