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Welcome to EdTech Tuesday. I'm Jennifer Gibson. And I'm Rich Dixon. What are we going to look
at today? We're going to look at a free app called The Opposites. I'll launch that, and
because this is a free app, there is a little bit of advertising that I've seen pop up inside
this app, just as a warning. What this does is it allows for linguistic development, particularly
with using words that are opposite. One thing I'm going to point out right now is that it
looks like we have some pretty angry characters here. The two characters look a bit combative,
that is true. That could be a pro or a con, depending on how you feel about that. I'm
going to start; we have levels that are presented to us, and you unlock different levels after
you complete each one, so in order to move to level two, for example, you have to complete
level one. One of the things that happens as soon as we start it is that there are these
small bubble-like sections that have words that may or may not be opposites, and as these
words start to collect toward the top of the screen, as you can see, we can tap them, and
then the opposites disappear. It's sort of like that one game that we used to play in
the old days. What happens when they build up? After they build up, if you don't select
the right number, you'll actually see a red warning coming up on the screen. Note though,
as well, that when these words come toward the top, they are said out loud. So if you
do have headphones for your students, they can hear those words being pronounced. So
there is some benefit, especially for English-language learners, if they need to match what they're
seeing with how things are pronounced. Does it keep track of your progress? Unfortunately
not, it doesn't have any reporting features. Since it's free, I thought we might not get
that feature. But once you do unlock one level, you can start with any of the other levels
that you've done. So let's say for example that I've progressed to level four, I can
go ahead and I can select level two if I want to start there. As we just saw, the entire
room filled up, I didn't select any opposites there, and the game automatically ends at
that point. That's a real quick overview. I think for grade levels, we can use this
at a variety of different reading levels. RTI, response to intervention. Absolutely,
it could be another one that we use. This covers a broad spectrum in the elementary
schools. Some grades probably wouldn't use it a whole lot, but maybe one or two times
it would be worth it, especially because it's free. If you'd like to check out our review
of this app, please go to the link in the episode description.