iPad app question

November 5, 2014 4:53 PM

I teach 5th grade and have a few student who struggle mightly with reading and writing. In order to help them with the writing process we are exploring using the ability of the ipad to take dictation and create a document. I would probably use the Pages app, but wondered if there were other apps out there other teachers have found to be useful. Caveat, we need to be able to convert the document to MS Word (which is easy to do in Pages). Suggestions? Experiences?
posted by OkTwigs to Education (2 answers total)

I've used Pages for years on the Mac, and it was all about formatting.

I'd suggest a streamlined app that's solely a text editor. This would offer less distraction to frustrated students, and create text that can be read on any modern computer. Most iOS text editors offer a one click "copy this clipboard and paste it into ...." command. Several free; many less than $2. I use Editorial, but I regret its lack of arrow keys (it can be frustrating pushing the cursor into the correct place, even without coordination issues.) Every iOS Text Editor compared in a huge chart by Brett Terpsra, with links to other big comparisons.

In case you haven't encountered them already, Don Johnston Co have been creating high quality assistive tech on the Apple platform since 1985: they've recently brought their Co-Writer software—which may be exactly what you want—to the iPad.

iOS 8.1 now has halfway decent predictive text; when combined with the dictation you could have a winner!
posted by Jesse the K at 5:05 PM on November 5, 2014

If your end product has to be converted to MS Word, why not just use MS Office on the iPad? Microsoft finally caved and made the full version free.

The standard keyboard dictation on iOS has been steadily improving, and adaptively learns as you use it. The current version is very usable, even without fiddling with any of the Accessibility features. (You might also poke around in that menu (Settings -> General -> Accessibility) a bit if you think some of the students have learning disabilities and might benefit from some enhancements. There's a LOT of non-obvious stuff in that menu.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:50 AM on November 6, 2014