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Joey Menart Tech Share 11/14/11 Hot Dots Jr. Basics: What it is… helps teach readiness skills for school success: Completing a pattern, completing a sequence of events, cause and effect, identifying plane and solid shapes, matching shapes, shape words, and visual discrimination. These skills only touch on the Hot Dots Jr. “Shapes” and “Patterns and Sequencing.” The company has available phonics, alphabet, numbers and counting, colors, shapes, and patterns and sequencing. The severe and profound/cognitively impaired class at our school uses this on a daily basis. It helps reinforce basic skills and allows the students to have fun while doing it. It is easy to use and allows the student to be in control of what they are doing. Features: It comes with 72 activities per box and 36 double-sided cards per box, as well as “Ace” the Talking, Teaching Dog…which is sold separately. The shapes box shows different shapes on the front and back of each card. It allows for immediate feedback to questions. All you have to do is press the hot dog’s pen point on the correct black circle or circles and the dog lights up green if you have the correct answer and red if you have the wrong answer. The students know how and what to adjust with the immediate feedback. Developer: Education Insights Cost: The pen is sold separate so it is anywhere from $7.00 to $12.99 on Amazon or ebay…or you can buy a kit which is about $35.00 which includes the pen and early learning skills in 5 progressive categories. You can buy individual card sets for $14.99, and the pen is listed as $12.99. Benefits: Students who have a severe cognitive disability as well as younger students where their educational level is that of a 3 year old to a 7 year old. It is helpful for students who need help in math which allows for counting, shapes, and patterns. It is also helpful for students who need help with letter recognition, sight words, and basic beginner readings. How will the student benefit: Students will benefit from this tool because it is fun, it keeps the students attention, allows for fine motor skill practice, as well as gives immediate feedback to a question while being educational. Constraints: Well, the constraints are that it gives a question for each card so you would need to have an individual read the question in order for the student to answer the question. If the student has a severe cognitive impairment then they obviously wouldn’t be able to read the question. It could be improved by having the pen recognize the question (word recognition) so when you run the pen over the question it asks the student the question so he or she can answer. This would help with reading/decoding as well as comprehension. Video: []