Monday, April 23, 2012

Visual Timer



If you have worked in Special Education, you've most likely used a visual timer. Chances are you purchased one similar to the photo above. It is a fantastic tool to show a student how much time is left on a task. Our students with Autism often respond well to such cues. The clocks are easy to use, and durable.
 The short coming of these clocks is that they generally cost $30 or more. Not a tremendous amount of money, but, still plenty for a clock when your in education! Further more the clocks are too big to fit in one's pocket.
There is a great app that offers an elegant solution to the cost and the size of the clock. Visual Timer, made by SnapTap retails for $1.99, and it runs on iTouches, iPads, and iPhones. Which means you are unlikely to bring one to a work site. 


Per the iTunes page for Visual Timer, "Visual Timer is a 60 minute timer with a graphical display that's also incredibly easy to use. To get started, just touch and drag the meter to the desired time and hit the Start button" 


In addition, "the timer now continues to run in the background when you quit Visual Timer. A notification will be displayed when the timer expires. Double tap the dial to toggle a text display of the current timer value. When the timer expires, a reset button appears". And finally, updated graphics for the retina color display. 
Visual Timer is a great response to an already terrific product.  It's easy to bring everywhere you go, lunch room, playground, work-site, and or course the classroom.  In addition, it's a great tool to recommend for families, so they can carry over techniques that are proven effective in the classroom. 
Happy therapy!

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