I had fun afternoon yesterday playing with the new Word Dance app that had only just been released. Word Dance allows you to create word clouds in a good choice of shapes, or to fit a photo of your own, that you can then string together into an animation with added music. The finished video saves to your camera roll for use elsewhere. Your text can be typed in or you can use tweets from a particular Twitter user name or hashtag.You have the facility to change fonts, colours, set transition duration etc and the music is added from the music you have purchased from the iTunes store that is downloaded to the device in the Music app. The app is easy to navigate your way around and gives impressive results without too much work. At £2.29 the app is reasonably priced , I  foresee I will be using it often!

A Charlie Brown Christmas is an app that tells a classic Peanuts tale that is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It's nearly Christmas but Charlie Brown isn't feeling festive, in fact he is depressed and trying to work out what the real meaning of the season is - the rampant commercialism definitely isn't it. By the end of the story Linus and Charlie Brown's other friends have rallied round and helped to cheer him up. The app is well thought out and has interactivity on each page with a few games along the way, including playing carols on a piano. I was reminded of the story by an article written by author Matt Haig about how difficult some people find the festive season, it's very thought provoking & sensitively written, and I'd like to send anyone feeling like Charlie Brown this Christmas a warm virtual hug. 

This week is Dyslexia Awareness Week and there are some great resources on the British Dyslexia Association website including posters and resource packs full of information and suggestions. Something I had been previously unaware of is the DAW Awards - you can nominate a child, young person. adult or teacher for an award, I'm sure there must be many inspiring people out there that haven't yet been nominated and the awards are presented on November 27th. 

​I have blogged about apps for Dyslexia before but  publisher Barrington Stoke have released a new app this week called Tints that has been extremely well thought out and deserves praise. The publisher's extensive experience in producing resources for Dyslexic youngsters shows and the app is smoothly functional as well as being aesthetically pleasing. You can choose from 5 soft colour backgrounds to make reading on a tablet more comfortable and there is a very useful ruler function included that will help readers focus on the text a little at a time. Looking forward to seeing a wider range of books available via the app but this is a great addition to the wonderful library of books published by Barrington Stoke. 

A function of the iPad that is not always well known can make web surfing easier for Dyslexics, Reader mode. When browsing a website or an article online if you look to the left side of the address bar often a symbol comprising of several horizontal lines appears. Tapping on this brings up a clearer version of the page with just the relevant text and images without any of the other digital noise (ads etc) that are usually there. Handy for those of us that are easily distracted too!