MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS (CPT303)

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT CPT303 MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS

Asadhu Shujaau (33475)

Faculty of Science

Word Count: 2902

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Individual Assignment

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 2

2. Proloquo2Go .......................................................................................................................... 3

2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3

2.2 Features ............................................................................................................................ 3

2.3 Advantages ....................................................................................................................... 4

2.4 Future of Proloquo2Go .................................................................................................... 4

3. Birdhouse ............................................................................................................................... 5

3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5

3.2 Features ............................................................................................................................ 5

3.3 Advantages ....................................................................................................................... 6

3.4 Future of Birdhouse ......................................................................................................... 6

4. Injini: Child Development Game Suite.................................................................................. 7

4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 7

4.2 Features ............................................................................................................................ 7

4.3 Advantages ....................................................................................................................... 8

4.4 Future of Injini ................................................................................................................. 8

5. Bugs and Buttons ................................................................................................................... 9

5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9

5.2 Features ............................................................................................................................ 9

5.3 Advantages ..................................................................................................................... 10

5.4 Future of Bugs and Buttons ........................................................................................... 10

6. Applying to Our Society ...................................................................................................... 11

6.1 Proloquo2Go .................................................................................................................. 11

6.2 Birdhouse ....................................................................................................................... 11

6.3 Injini: Child Development Game Suite.......................................................................... 11

6.4 Bugs and Buttons ........................................................................................................... 11

7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 12

References ................................................................................................................................ 13

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1. Introduction

With the introduction of smartphones and tablets people are now able to interact with others in

different ways, simplify tasks, access resources which were otherwise difficult to access, enjoy

with gaming applications and learn things in new ways. Different applications are used for

different purposes like socializing, learning and entertainment. Applications are also

sometimes targeted to specific user groups based on demographics such as gender, age and

religion.

This report looks into applications used in tablets and smartphones that help with individuals

that require special education. These include applications that are target for individuals with

special needs and individuals who take care of individuals with special needs. Report is targeted

at 4 different such applications. For each specified application, the features and the advantages

of the application over other selected applications are summarized briefly. Next, the future of

these applications will be discussed. The report then goes forward by looking into how these

applications can be applied in our society. Finally, the report will concluded with the overall

findings. Report body is divided into five main sections, one for each selected application and

last for applying the applications in our society.

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2. Proloquo2Go

2.1 Introduction

Proloquo2Go is an award winning symbol-based Augmentative and Alternative

Communication (AAC) app that targets people who cannot or have difficulty speaking. This

application is available across iPhones, IPods and IPads. This application is used by adults,

school and preschool students, individuals who have Autism, Cerebral Palsy and Down

syndrome (Sailers, 2009).

2.2 Features

The following are some features in Proloquo2Go as explained by (AssistiveWare, 2015)

Interface customization: users can adjust the grid size to their liking, in order to increase

or decrease the size of the buttons for physical accessing and visual processing. Users

can adjust the button spacing, hold duration to activate a button. As basic vocabulary

are given in a symbol-based manner users can select the vocabulary that matches there

interest and put in appropriate folders for easy access. Interface can be changed to fit

basic, intermediate or advanced communication levels based on how much the user can

handle.

Vocabulary customization: as aforementioned users can choose a level from basic,

intermediate and advanced. English vocabulary is available along with regional variants

so that users can choose which they find easy. As of now Australian, Indian, Scottish,

British and American voices are available. Moreover, Proloquo2Go also offers Spanish

vocabulary along with its American variant. Voice can be changed to the users liking.

Can choose a voice of male or a female adult or a child from different accents. Users

can even create their own vocabulary sets.

Language development: change from one vocabulary level to another as the user

improves without much re-customization. Grammar support is fully configurable which

means can be customized to users liking. Support learning through planning ahead with

core words located consistently across folders for easy progression.

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2.3 Advantages

Comes with 20000 symbols used as images which is the greatest number in any AAC

application.

Can be used by different age groups and by people with autism, cerebral palsy and

Down syndrome unlike other applications which is targeted only to adults or children.

Supports multi user and sharing among users is available. Birdhouse can share child’s

performance information in order to take corrective measures. This application shows

progress through levels. So each child’s progress can be identified separately.

Come as a whole package since application size is large but does not need additional

purchases like the other mentioned applications.

Proloquo2Go supports regional variant of English and has localized Spanish application

and has voice support in the specified languages.

2.4 Future of Proloquo2Go

By looking into frequently asked questions section of the AssistiveWare website, some of the

possible future improvements for Proloquo2Go can be recognized. Following are some

possible improvements that might be available in future versions.

Additional voices: as of now, some regional specific voices does not cover both male

and female voices of adults and children. It is a possible improvement with addition of

new region specific variants and other languages.

Localization: (AssistiveWare, 2015) states that with Proloquo2Go 4.0 the foundation is

ready to support additional languages. Currently it supports both English and Spanish

and new languages are expected to follow. Most languages are expected to come free

of charge and users will have the ability to swap between English and non-English

voices.

Data collection: with data collection current performance, progress and efficiency of

instructions in the application can be determined, AssistiveWare is currently exploring

the feasibility of including this feature in future versions as it is a huge step and as it

involves confidentiality issues.

Cloud storage support: currently offers limited support on iCloud. Substantial risks

involved with it is the reason why it is not fully supported. AssistiveWare is working

on their own cloud-based solution.

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3. Birdhouse

3.1 Introduction

Birdhouse is a tracking application designed for parents raising children with autism by parents

raising a child with autism. This application helps keep a running and searchable journal of

child’s activities like sleep, medications, therapies, food and other activities. Helps to identify

what is working and what needs to be changed. This application helps parents be ready and

organized for the child’s requirements (Special Needs Apps, 2015). This application can aid in

taking care of children that require special education.

3.2 Features

The following are some features in Birdhouse as given by (Birdhouse, 2015)

Cross Platform: Birdhouse is available for PC and smartphones. And supports both

android and iOS. PC version is used over browsers and the application is compatible

with Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

Joint Profiles: after signing up, parents can add separate profiles for as many children

as they want and also the information can be shared with the children’s teachers and

therapists if they are using birdhouse so that they better understand them. This is aided

by reports that can be generated separately for each child. Care takers can understand

child’s daily routines.

Medical care: helps keep track of medications for the child and who have suggested the

medicine. Reminds users of the time for taking medicines and also can keep records of

therapists for emergency contacts. Sharing this with teachers and other relatives can

help them understand and know what to do in an emergency.

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3.3 Advantages

Specially tailored for parents who have children with autism. This application is also

maintained by people who have children with autism meaning they understand what

they are doing and can help for better improvement of the application.

While good behavior tracking apps can only be bought, this application comes with two

pricing plans, free of charged and premium for monthly or yearly plan. The premium

plan is affordable as it charges only $10 per month if monthly and $8 per month if

yearly which accounts to 20% saving. This is the only application specifically tailored

for behavior tracking.

Most of the good behavior tracking apps are available only for Apple products while

Birdhouse is supported across PCs, Android and iOS.

Continuous updates are made based on suggestions from the users, meaning this

application will cater for user requirements far better.

Different ways to use the application are discussed in different posts of the Birdhouse

blog which can help users to take the advantages of the features the application

provides.

3.4 Future of Birdhouse

Based of features suggested by users, (Birdhouse, 2015) has identified updates they have

started to work on and updates they have planned. These includes the following.

Planned

o Printing capabilities for schedules

o Documenting durations for activities

o Color coding activities for easy identification

o Tracking causes of something in a particular activity

Started

o A way to share parenting tips

o Improvements for smartphone the application

o Custom moods (images) to identify child’s mood on particular times of the day

o Tracking social skills that have improved and needs improvement

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4. Injini: Child Development Game Suite

4.1 Introduction

Injini: Child Development Game Suite is a collection of games that provide special and

engaging learning experiences for children with developmental delays (NCSOFT, n.d.).

Moreover, it can also be used for early childhood education as well. The game suite contains a

collection of 9 games, 8 extra mini games and levels for each game through which children can

have fun and learn at the same time. Each game focuses on learning and improvement of

different skills.

4.2 Features

The following are some features in Injini as specified by (NCSOFT, n.d.).

Covers a variety of skills: as the game suite contains many games, these are focused to

practice many skills. These include fine motor skills, understanding through trial and

error, auditory processing, logical reasoning and problem solving, visual discrimination

and many more are covered with a bunch of simple games.

Levels: each game has 9 or more levels which children can progress through in their

own pace. Each skill can be improved slowly and levels can be repeated if the child

wants to do so. This gives the child the control in learning and can work of skills they

need to improve with the help of adults.

Usage: this collection of games can be used by individual students or at school for a

group of students. Teachers and parents alike can help children learn from at home or

at school.

Progress: game progress can be known for each game this means it can help the adults

identify child’s performance in different areas and help in improving areas they are

weak at.

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4.3 Advantages

All-in-one game collection that targets not only development for special needs children

but can also be used for early childhood education. Other applications target a smaller

niche compared to Injini.

Initial application purchase can be considered expensive compared to other

applications, but once purchased, Injini does not have additional in app purchases and

future game additions and updates are free of charge. Which is not the case most of the

time in other apps like bugs and buttons which has different applications as they go

forward meaning each one has to be bought.

Improvement of a huge variety of skills through games for children with special needs

from just one application. Mostly other apps come in separate, which means most of

the time each application has to be bought and this means to access different games

children has to open and close applications. Injini allows access to all games in one

place.

4.4 Future of Injini

By going through different posts on Injini website blog, some of the potential future

improvements can be realized. This application might in future bring about following changes

and improvements.

Additional games: new games might be added in future which will focus on already

existing skills and new skills so that children will stay interested by engaging with

different games and at the same time improving their skills.

Target audience: inclusion of new games might cater to new audiences with special

needs which are not covered as of now.

Additional levels: more challenging levels might be added to games so that kids can

push forward.

Better tracking and user profiles: might add profiles to play games so that children can

type there name and make a profile to play games this might in turn help better track

progress so the parent or a teacher can identify each child’s performance individually.

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5. Bugs and Buttons

5.1 Introduction

Bugs and buttons is an application focused at children of age 5 and under. This application

comes with 18 mini games that provide great graphics and beautiful music. This game takes

children through intriguing mini games that progressively adapts to the skill level of students.

All mini games in this application are self-paced meaning the children can take their time in

the learning process and enjoy the game. The mini games offer simple instructions when played

on guided mode and also allows children to play on their own without additional help.

5.2 Features

The following are the features in Bugs and Buttons as given by (Little Bit Studio, 2014).

Two modes of playing: children can play the games in guided mode which will help the

users through games or children can choose to play on their own which can be a

challenge as well other than the games themselves.

Variety of games: games focused on mathematical skills, puzzles, social skills and

alphabets and many more are included in this application with a total of 18 games.

Multi touch interactions: help children to engage with two hands or many fingers. Also,

this can mean that two or more children can use the application.

HD Graphics: highly interactive and beautiful graphics help make the application more

eye-catching and engaging.

Cross platform: at first this application was only available for only iOS. Now, in

addition to iOS, it also supports android, windows phone and windows 8 and 10 PCs.

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5.3 Advantages

This application is similar to Injini but it is cheaper than all others mentioned before as

it comes at a price of $2.99.

Games look more beautiful compared to Injini and unlike Injini the number of games

are more and interactions are smooth and easy compared to other applications.

Compared to other three applications mentioned in this report, Bugs and Buttons have

beautiful graphics which will help keep children be more involved and interested.

There are achievements called bug stamps which totals to 44. Such features can

motivate children to try harder in order to earn these stamps which in turn will help

them learn more.

Compared to Injini and other applications this application is available across android,

iOS, Windows Phone and Windows 8 and 10 PCs for the same prices with the same

full set of features.

Specially tailored to be used by children of age 5 and under.

5.4 Future of Bugs and Buttons

Little Bit Studio is the company behind this application and over time they released updates

for the application with bug fixes and support for updates to different Operating Systems.

However, it does not seem that this application would be improved by adding new features

instead they have already released Bugs and Buttons 2 and other similar apps which can be

found in their website. This can mean in future this game might not get improved. However,

the chances of releasing similar news games which target different age groups are high. This is

evident by other applications on their website like DialSafe Pro which teaches children to you

phones safely.

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6. Applying to Our Society

6.1 Proloquo2Go

Proloquo2Go can be used in classrooms or at home to help educate kindergarten students this

can include students who require and does not require special education. Teachers and parents

alike can use this application to teach children with Down syndrome so that they can improve

their learning process. With the help of such application individuals performance can be

analyzed. Also, adult or a youngster, the application can be and is being used for cases of

difficulty or inability of speaking in order to communicate their needs.

6.2 Birdhouse

With shared information about children with autism among parents, teachers, therapists and if

necessary other caretakers, can help keep track of each child’s performance individually.

Meaning breakdowns, happy times and hardest times and days for children can be identified.

This can help the caretakers to take extra measures to deal with such situation. Working

solutions and things that failed can be identified so it can come handy later. This application

although not targeted directly at individuals with special needs, can help to provide specialized

care and also improve communication among teachers and parents.

6.3 Injini: Child Development Game Suite

As aforementioned Injini can be used to teach early childhood education to children at homes

and at school. Parents can help and play with their children and enjoy and encourage them to

improve. Children today loves using iPads as adults just to play games. Using this to advantage,

the application can be used to learn with fun. In schools students can be put into groups and

can help them to solve complex levels in games which will help them improve different skills

and social skills as well by working with others. This application encourages children to learn

on their own which is an effective way to learn quicker.

6.4 Bugs and Buttons

This game can be used to teach children the basic mathematics and reading and problem solving

skills. As it is supported across a broad range of operating systems at an affordable price,

parents can download this application to their smart devices and help children learn in an

interesting and interactive manner.

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7. Conclusion

By studying through many applications available for special education it was found that the

best applications are mostly developed for iOS. Not only just the applications mentioned on

this report but also other award winning applications as well were supported to iOS if not any

other operating system.

By studying thoroughly it is also known that most applications cover a wide range of special

needs and mean time can also be applied to early childhood development of all children alike.

The applications are built with people who have knowledge of special needs hence it caters

particularly to special education.

Taking our society into consideration. Although, the applications are made by people from

different countries and targets mostly children, these applications in most of the cases can be

applied into our society and can be even used by adults with disabilities.

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References AssistiveWare. (2015, August). Retrieved from

http://download.assistiveware.com/proloquo2go/helpfiles/4.1/en/assets/Proloquo2Go

%20Manual.pdf

AssistiveWare. (2015). Does Proloquo2Go offer data collection? Retrieved from

AssistiveWare: https://www.assistiveware.com/support/faq/page/383

AssistiveWare. (2015). Does Proloquo2Go support iCloud? Retrieved from AssistiveWare:

https://www.assistiveware.com/support/faq/page/138

AssistiveWare. (2015). What languages and voices does Proloquo2Go support? Retrieved

from AssistiveWare: https://www.assistiveware.com/support/faq/page/30

AssistiveWare. (2015). When will Proloquo2Go be available in different languages?

Retrieved from AssistiveWare: https://www.assistiveware.com/support/faq/page/218

AssistiveWare. (n.d.). A voice for those who cannot speak. Retrieved from AssistiveWare:

http://www.assistiveware.com/product/proloquo2go

Birdhouse. (2014, August 29). 3 Ways to Use Birdhouse During the School Year. Retrieved

from Birdhouse: http://blog.birdhousehq.com/3-ways-use-birdhouse-during-school-

year/

Birdhouse. (2015). Feature Requests. Retrieved from Birdhouse:

http://community.birdhousehq.com/forums/196777-general/category/135651-feature-

requests

Birdhouse. (2015). Pricing. Retrieved from Birdhouse: http://www.birdhousehq.com/choose-

your-plan/

Little Bit Studio. (2014). Bugs and Buttons. Retrieved from Little Bit Studio:

http://www.littlebitstudio.com/bugsandbuttons.html

NCSOFT. (n.d.). Injini Description. Retrieved from Injini: http://www.injini.net/?page_id=18

NCSOFT. (n.d.). The Blog. Retrieved from Injini: http://www.injini.net/?p=2229

Sailers, E. (2009, December 24). iPhone, iPad and iPod touch Apps for (Special) Education.

Retrieved from Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24470331/iPhone-iPad-and-iPod-

touch-Apps-for-Special-Education

Special Needs Apps. (2015). Birdhouse for Autism . Retrieved from Special Needs Apps:

http://www.friendshipcircle.org/apps/browse/birdhouse-for-autism/