BOOM

   

       Hi everyone! I can't believe it has been since the middle of March since I have posted. That was my Spring Break and during that week, my (and everyone else's) normal was adjusted. I had no idea when I left my school for Spring Break that I would not be going back at all for the 2020 SY. Very quickly it became apparent that I was going to have to adjust very quickly to reaching my students in a completely new way. Prior to March 2020, I didn't even know what Zoom was and on March 30, 2020- I started full time teletherapy with a little over half of my caseload. The learning curve was steep! Thankfully, I was already pretty "digital" and had incorporated digital materials into my therapy. I posted about that in mid-March, my last blog post. Then, I started working 16-20 hour days to 1) learn the technology, 2) make the schedule, 3) communicate with families, 4) and make more digital materials. So, everything else including my blog, went on the backburner as I and all of you adjusted to our new normal.

        Not only did I not know what Zoom was, I had also never heard of Boom cards prior to Covid-19. As I researched interactive digital materials, I kept coming across Boom. Now I suppose I had seen them on teachers pay teachers, but I did not understand what they were and therefore had not used them. Once I started to try to learn about them, I fell in love with Boom Learning pretty immediately. They are fun, engaging, and interactive. I also fell in love with them because I realized pretty quickly Boom was what I was MISSING in my life.



        Now to fully understand, you need a little bit of background knowledge. About 20 years ago, in the dark ages of video games, clothing/ skins/ accessories for video game characters were largely two dimensional painted graphic art made in programs like Photoshop. (In contrast today, they are three dimensional built items). Without geeking out too much and getting too technical, I used to paint items for video games and sold them. I made a few hundred dollars a month for about 10 years (2000-2010) from this freelance graphic design. It was a hobby that I turned into a very small side business and let me be creative and artistic. Then suddenly video games changed and the items needed were now 3D constructs made in programs like blender (which I tried and just failed at miserably. It was just not for me). So for 10 years, I painted digital art in Photoshop, making realistic items for video games. Then, that creative outlet was just gone as technology changed.

        Ok, enough of my geeky technobabble side. The reason I realized Boom was the missing link in my life was that I COULD PAINT 2D things in PHOTOSHOP and use them in my BOOM card decks!!! I have not been this excited about something in a while and I started furiously making my own boom decks. My decks are a combination of things I paint and make in photoshop (my own digital art), free to use commercial pictures, and a combination of the two that I manipulate in photoshop to make exactly what I want for the speech or language targets in my Boom decks.



        I launched my own Boom Learning store: Coyle's Communication and I have been HAVING SO MUCH FUN making boom cards!! At the time of writing this, I have published about 60 decks and 5 of them are FREE. Please go look at my store and  join boom, please use my referral link: SIGN UP FOR BOOM LEARNING HERE PLEASE If you are not going to make your own decks to sell, then you can just get a FREE boom account so that you can start collecting boom decks- MANY of which are totally FREE!! That is right- get a free account and then search for and get tons of totally FREE, engaging, interactive therapy materials.



        This is what I needed for so many reasons. This is a really stressful time and graphic art relaxes me and makes me happy. When I can combine that with my geeky speechie nerd self, it is just making me SO HAPPY! I love being a speech language therapist, making speech materials, reading about, and talking about speech!

         Whether you are working face to face in a clinic, school, rehab (ect) or continuing with teletherapy, YOU NEED BOOM CARDS IN YOUR LIFE! I can't stress that enough. They are so much fun and can be easily used with a tablet or laptop in face to face therapy or shared via your teletherapy platform like Zoom. I have just interspersed a few examples of some of my Boom decks in this blog post. You can click on any of the pictures to go look at them in my Boom store.



       Have you guys used Boom decks in your speech and language therapy? Let me know in the comments!

Ms. Coyle MS CCC/SLP

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