Conversation Builder Teen App Review

Friday, December 7, 2012
Happy Friday! I wanted to share with you a review on Conversation Builder Teen by The Mobile Education Store. When Kyle contacted me about another one of his Teen apps, I was really excited. The number of apps that are age appropriate for teens are slim compared to the number of apps that are created for young students. This app helps students start, engage in, and maintain a conversation related to teen topics. There are 8 conversation topics to choose from: clothes, bullying, summer, entertainment, sports, sarcasm, relationships, and school. The Mobile Education Store sure hit the nail on the head when coming up with topics teens would relate to!
When you start up the app, you are brought to a settings page. Here, you can choose the type of conversation (2-3 player or group) and which modules you would like to use with your students. If you choose the 2 or 3 player option, you are shown a picture and prompted with, "Choose the best way to start this conversation." The student is shown 3 options to choose from. The student must choose the most appropriate response.
After the correct response is chosen, the student is then prompted to record their response. The app will then reply back to the student who is then prompted to choose the next best response. This goes back and forth a few times. The app saves the recorded responses and creates a whole conversation that can then be played back. 

If the group conversation option is chosen, you are prompted to list the names of all participating in the conversation. You can add photos of the participants as well (students will LOVE this!) This setting does not give the students options of what to say, instead lets the students practice carrying on their own conversation. Everything is recorded which is a great feature to go back and let students listen and talk about what they said. Students are also prompted to pass the iPad to their friend which is great for turn taking skills. 
I love how the speech bubbles come up like a text message (great idea when targeting those teenagers!) Another great feature to this app is that it allows you to upload your own photo for discussion. This would be great to use photos of school events or other familiar topics for students. 
The entire time I was watching the tutorial for this app, I was thinking about students with Autism. Many students with Autism do not know how to appropriately carry on a conversation. Using the conversation prompts in the 2 or 3 player setting would allow you and your student to discuss all options, why one is correct, and why the others are not the best choice. I also love the recording feature. Any app with a voice recorder automatically goes into my articulation therapy bag of tricks! 

Or you can try to win a copy below!

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