CViConnect Pro vs Practice2Master Abacus

Who is the app for? CViConnect Pro is an iPad application intended to support teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs) who are working with students who have Cortical Visual Impairment. The app can be used by teachers to prepare and run visual activities with their students. The goal is to aid in the process of improving the visual impairment with this iPad application, and grow the awareness of CVI as a whole and provide educational content related to CVI. What does it do? The application guides the TVI through the process of working with students who have Cortical Visual Impairment. It allows the TVI to present visually stimulating activities to the student and captures data that can be used by the TVI to better help their students with their impairment. How does it work? Using the front-facing camera in the iPad the application can measure facts about how the child is responding to the exercises. All of these expertly-determined facts can then be graphed and analyzed by the educator, in whole or in part, across all training sessions. For example, it is possible to graph the time spent, on average, on training sessions combined with the number of times a sprite is touched, showing ways of measuring improvement in visual acuity as well as allowing a teacher to tailor future lesson plans to better match the needs of the student. In addition to analyzing favorite and least favorite lessons, the CVI system has the ability to use information from the training sessions to automatically generate new training sessions that are best for the student. As an example, the system can detect highly touched areas of the iPad and where sprites are commonly touched. Using this information, the system can automatically generate new lesson plans that focus the attention specifically on these areas as well as specifically AWAY from these areas to improve acuity. The system can use facts about the lengths of time spent on average by the user on training sessions to tailor the length of time a typical training session should take place. Where can I get help if I need it? CViConnect Pro maintains a support forum where users of the app (parents, TVI's and CVI professionals) are supported by leading CVI professionals and CVi Connect technical staff. Users can asks questions and provide feedback in this forum, which adds to the CVi community as a whole by serving as a place where CVI discussions can take place.

An abacus is a tool used to perform mathematical calculations and is widely accepted as a helpful learning aid for students. However, the learning curve can be challenging not only for many students but also for teachers and parents. Practice2Master Abacus helps address this learning difficulty by making abacus learning an interactive experience. This app allows students to take lessons, practice skills, and monitor their progress by completing quizzes and drills, all at their own pace. The Practice2Master Abacus app can be used as a supplement to classroom instructions in which teachers can assign practice tasks or drills to students. It may also be used as a self-learning tool that includes systematic instructions and practice to help students start from the basics and become proficient abacus users. Not only is this app a great tool for students, but it can also be used as a reliable reference for teachers and parents who need to refresh themselves on abacus calculations. Features/Benefits: • Twenty-two progressively ordered short lessons on how to use an abacus to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division • Abacus operations that are explained in great details using purposefully chosen examples • Patterns of hand and finger movements that take into consideration the learning characteristics of young students and students with visual impairments • Full compatibility with screen readers; high-contrast colors and large print letters and numbers • The ability to practice what you learned in lessons using app-created problems or problems created by your teachers • Dynamic assistance from the app during practice • Progress monitoring through lesson quizzes and drills • Quiz or drill reports for personal reference or to send to teachers • Customized problem lists that teachers can create and send to students for practice or drill. • On-screen abacus for calculation operations