My Valentine to Doodle Buddy- Part 3

Love means never having to say "WHERE ARE MY MARKERS?"

In this exploration of the free app Doodle Buddy, I have been giving examples of how I find this deceptively simple app very useful on a day-to-day basis. Using one app in many ways is a suggested remedy for App Fatigue- being overwhelmed by an internal pressure to keep up with all the apps available- perhaps resulting in giving up on using technology, a contextual and engaging tool, in your work!

A few additional loving examples are offered below as we approach Valentine's Day, though I encourage you to add your ideas in the comments.

Visualizing an idea or story setting: I recently was reading along with a group the book Iron Thunder, the story of the critical battle between the ironclad ships Merrimack and Monitor during the Civil War. An important plot element is the main character's role during a key battle: to run between the turret and the wheelhouse to convey orders from the captain about what and where to shoot. This was a very spatial situation for students to grasp and benefitted from a sketch; this also allowed us to reference previous story elements such as the storm that damaged the speaking tube between the turret and wheelhouse. Visualizing in this way formed a scaffolding to cause-effects relationships in the story and its overall story grammar. This sketch above was actually made in Paper by Fifty-Three, a similar app, during a time where Doodle Buddy was in need of an update, but you can also see a sketch of the ship as an overall setting, based on a text passage.

Stickwriting Stories: Similar to the above idea, Stickwriting (Ukrainetz, 1998) is a "...strategy in which children represent the characters, settings, and sequences of actions with simple, chronologically or episodically organized stick-figure drawings. As a quick and easy representational strategy, pictography is applicable to both individual language intervention and inclusive classroom settings." Doodle Buddy provides all the tools needed to bring Stickwriting to any context, and engagement to boot. In the above picture, we used Stickwriting as a strategy alongside the We Can Make it Better program; in this series of stories, students are presented with social situations gone wrong and cued to "make it better" through social narrative problem solving and pose "instead of..." scenarios. Maria had refused to help Bob rake the leaves for jumping piles, and the student here illustrated how they could work together to make piles. I have found that it's helpful and more salient (and supportive of more oral narrative practice) for students to illustrate alternative scenarios rather than simply describe the actions.

Illustrate concepts on the fly: I work with an adult client who has significant regulation and processing issues. Doodle Buddy is often helpful for me to write/illustrate key ideas in lessons and discussions, and grabs his attention as well. Above you see a lesson about the structure of conversation and strategies for accepting/responding to others' opinions in interactions. Using Doodle Buddy has the additional benefit of providing a sharable visual to his caregivers about strategies we have addressed in sessions. Keep in mind you can also easily add text to a Doodle Buddy sketch.

Provide simple visuals about methodologies: If I don't have, say, a Zones of Regulation visual or Social Behavior Map handy, no problem. I can just do a quick drawing as you see above re: Zones. In some cases this enables me to provide a teen- or adult-friendly visual whereas the methodology visuals may be geared toward younger students.

A few last ideas will follow tomorrow!