My World for iPad

Many of you know I have a thing about maps! Maps are fascinating to examine, but from an SLP perspective can be used to target all kinds of skills: categories (i.e. continents, states, cities, capitals), spatial concepts, and clearly intersection with classroom curriculum.

Technology has made maps more interactive and therefore a more engaging context. My World for iPad ($.99) is a nice little tool to have if you would like to use geography as a way to build language skills. Specifically, you can zoom in to any location by pinching, or use the location functions of the device to identify where you are on the map (doable with many maps apps). The hook of My World is that it allows you to create a line and find out a) the distance of the path between places and b) the amount of time it would take to travel by plane or car. In both cases, students are engaged with a personal connection (their location, as measured in relation to locations relevant to classroom topics) and can be asked to apply language around distance or, more importantly for many of our students, time.

Using My World would benefit from some structure imposed on your part, for example the creation of a scavenger hunt/challenge to find distances and times and record them on a graphic organizer.