Welcome to Social Studies: a "Sphere" of Language Development

As a companion to my column for the ASHA Leader App-Titude series, "Welcome to Science Class," this series explores how technology can serve as a context for teaching "language underpinnings" related to the social studies curriculum.

When using apps and contextual connections with students, we can follow a few principles:
-Think carefully about the "S"/"Speechie" in the FIVES Criteria- how can the app serve as a context to address specific language objectives relevant to the student or students? What structures will you add- visual supports such as graphic organizers, verbal supports such as questioning and scaffolding- to make sure this happens?
-Avoid becoming overwhelmed by the curriculum- take a few topic areas you have become familiar with and begin using them in even a broad sense with a grade or grades.
-When possible, find an app you can use in different ways over a span of years, keeping in mind how the objectives might change depending on the student, his or her grade, and level of development.

An app that can be integrated to exemplify some of these principles is Sphere (Free). Sphere brings you 360º views of landmarks and locations around the world, so you can bring students on "virtual field trips." The app uses the gyroscope and a form of augmented reality (layering digital info over our ordinary world) to respond to your movement of the iPad, so that your view of the location changes as you move around. Answers to common questions about this app: the view is not live, but a still 360º image, and if you walk forward it does not affect the view.

The best way to understand what I mean is to download this free app and give it a try. The app does require a sign-in; you can use a Google or Facebook account. This has the advantage of allowing you to tap the heart to "Favorite" 360º views and save them for use with students (hopefully year after year), itself a step to bring structure to your use of this app.

The 360º view of the Great Wall of China will change as you position the iPad in different directions or angles.

Sphere can be a resource for contextualized, specific therapy activities over several grade levels. Taking some curriculum progressions in Massachusetts, for instance:
At Grade 2, explore landmarks from various continents or use the China "Collection." Have students describe what they see in a location using conceptual words such as beside, above, under, right, left.
At Grade 3, explore locations from one's home state. Use a "5 Senses" based graphic organizer to have students generate sensory details they might experience if standing in that spot.
At Grade 4, view areas from regions of the United States. A more schematic graphic organizer can be used to incorporate more abstract language, e.g. comparisons to other settings. The Story Grammar Marker® Setting Map is a good example of this type of scaffold.

Along the way, you can be considering if the target activities are within the particular student's "zone," or if he/she/they need a simpler task within the context.

Thanks for coming along with me for this trip through some tools and contexts within social studies- I am going to say "goodbye" to the topic for now and will be saying "hello" to Nashville, Cincinnati and Halifax, Nova Scotia as I travel a lot in October. I'll check in when I can!

Disclosure: Author is a contractor with Mindwing Concepts, Inc.  for provision of blog content and professional development.