C-N students show educators that “there’s an app for that”

^{Graduate student Haley Johnson talks with area educators at an app workshop hosted by C-N’s Education Department as part of the Smoky Mountain Assistive Technology Consortium.}

Carson-Newman’s Education Department hosted an October 26 hands-on workshop entitled “What’s new in the app world?” As a member of the Smoky Mountain Assistive Technology Consortium, C-N welcomed educators representing 10 counties to the campus event.

With iPads in hand, C-N graduate and undergraduate students helped to lead demonstrations centered on apps available to educators to use with children with mild to severe disabilities. Carson-Newman’s Dr. Sandy Long, credits an Assistive Technology (AT) grant, along with the interest of fellow colleagues in education, as to making such an event possible.

With a desire for C-N students to have greater access to AT equipment, Long said she applied and received a $15,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Education. “This allows us to help our graduates to know exactly how to use such technology when they leave here,” explained the associate professor of education. “This year I used most of the money to purchase iPads with an app called proloquo2go. Our students have been to one outside and one in-class workshop on iPad productivity and proloquo2go,” noted Long. “They can now program their iPads so that a non-verbal individual could “speak” through simple touch.”

The SMATC coordinates three workshops each year inviting personnel from the ten-county East Tennessee region. The group utilizes local expertise and offers the workshops at no cost to the districts.