My review of SpellBoard
Not all spelling apps are created equal
Lately in class I have been using the SpellBoard app by palasoftware. I’m finding it quite a brilliant addition to our class tools for students with poor spelling. There is also a companion version for the iPhone and iPod Touch – SpellBoard Buddy and a full Mac version which I haven’t yet used or needed. There are hundreds of spelling apps out there, but there are four really great things about SpellBoard that make it awesome for our particular adult literacy context:
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Users (students and/or teachers) can create their OWN spelling quizzes/word lists
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Users can share their quizzes with other students with iDevices via Bluetooth (iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch)
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The interface looks good and is not at all childish.
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The apps allows for sharing – multiple student profiles can be used on the same device
Let me tell you how it works. When you first open the app, you are presented with a blank slate and need to either create a quiz or share/load a quiz from elsewhere. In most cases I have chosen to create quizzes myself, as I like to focus on current themes in my classes, so tend to want to select vocabulary appropriate to that.
For example, we are in the middle of the State of Origin series at the moment. I’ve quite a few students in my class who are Rugby League mad, so over this period of time their has been some focus on the games. I put together a slideshow with some newspaper articles; some info about ticket purchasing and pricing; and a YouTube video of some great State of Origin moments and saved it as a pdf to be opened in the GoodReader app (another of my personal favourites and one that is used constantly in class). The students annotated their own copies of the text on each individual iPad while referring to a paper-based booklet of comprehension, punctuation, free writing and spelling tasks.
The spelling task used a quiz created in SpellBoard using words from the newspaper text. Each student Studied the Quiz and practiced before Taking the Quiz. They then came up with their own list of words they associated with State of Origin, checked the spelling with me and created their own short quizzes to swap with each other.
Creating Quizzes
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Tap Create Quiz and give it a name. You can choose a level from 1 to 12, but I usually just leave them all at level 1.
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Tap the + icon to add a word. I like to use both Speak Word and Speak Phrase options.
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Type in the correct spelling.
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Tap the microphone and say the word clearly.
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If adding the optional phrase containing the word, type it in and record the phrase.
Sharing Quizzes
- 1 to many iDevices: When I create the quiz, I tend to choose the Save Quizzes to iTunes option because I can connect my iPad to the server, drag the quizzes from under SpellBoard in the File Sharing area to my desktop then sync it to the others. This is one of the options under Share/Load from within the app.
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1 to 1: When a student creates a quiz and wants to share it with their peers, Connect via Bluetooth works well. Both devices need Bluetooth switched on and they are usually very quickly able to find each other and accept the invitation to share. A copy of the quiz can then be transferred from one device to the other relatively quickly.
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A quiz can also be emailed then loaded to an iDevice via iTunes.
Studying and Taking a quiz
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Study: Quizzes are studied by tapping Study the Quiz. The word is shown and spoken individually and with the phrase if you have chosen this option. They can listen to this as many times as they would like. The student is encouraged to write the word on the iPad screen in the space provided. This is an important spelling strategy. While in study mode the student can also connect to Wordnik to get a definition of the word and can also look at synonyms and antonyms of the word. The quiz can be studied over and over again and can easily be transferred to other iDevices over Bluetooth to take home.
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Take the quiz: The word is played and shown as a gap within the context of the phrase (if that option was recorded). Just like in the study section, the student can try out the spelling by writing, but needs to tap and use the keyboard to enter their answer. Scores are kept in history, so students can take the test multiple times and track improvements along the way.
Like anything on the iPad screen, results of a quiz can be retained and submitted with their work by taking a screen capture and printing, via email or by sending the completed quiz results to the cloud.
Limitations
This app would not be suitable for people with hearing impairments as the quizzes rely on users being able to hear the spoken word individually and within a phrase.
App reviews
SpellBoard is currently $5.99 in the Australian iTunes store. I was surprised to see that reviewers have only scored it three stars, but I’m wondering if what makes it perfect in my context (being able to create highly contextualised word lists) might make it time-consuming or high maintenance in others. Still, people tend to only bother providing feedback when they’ve been disappointed, so it made me realise I should make an effort to provide positive reviews when I come across something I find really good, so I’ve added my own review accordingly.
You might also be interested to know that the same developers make MathsBoard. I haven’t used it yet, but am interested to see if it is as useful and works in the same way.
Love to hear from others about what you think of SpellBoard or if you know of another great spelling app.
Bye for now!
