In Spring, Flowers [ASL] Bloom

“Sign Language ASL Pocket Sign” App Update: 

I previously learned how to sign these words: Tea, Soup, Ice Cream, Good, Bad, Milk, Bowl, Bread, Water, Cookie, and Eat 

The words and phrases I learned this past week: Orange, Dad, Cat, Mouse, Rat, Dog, Elephant, Fish, My, Yours, Theirs, Love, My Cat, My Fish, His/Her Fish

 

Today, I will be discussing an app called “ASL Bloom”. Before I talk about my thoughts regarding this app, let me introduce you to it. ASL Bloom and Sign Language ASL Pocket Sign are similar in terms of the app’s usability. On ASL Bloom’s Home Page, you will see you lessons, how many points you gained from those lessons, the number of words you learned to sign, and a streak counter (kind of like Duolingo). There is also a Practice Page. Here, you can take a quiz to test your knowledge or use their pre-made flashcards. The next is the Signs or Explore Page. Like Sign Language ASL Pocket Sign, you can search for specific words that might not be in the lessons. Any word in the English dictionary could be searched up. In addition, ASL Bloom is easily navigable, so users will not have trouble experimenting with the application.  

There are two things that I did not like about ASL Bloom. The first one is the subscription. Pocket Sign also has a subscription, but they provide the user with free daily lessons. In addition, you can access the flashcards feature once the words that are in the set are encountered and learned through the free daily lessons. In ASL Bloom, both the quiz and the flashcard features are locked behind the subscription, limiting what the user can access. There are also no free daily lessons in ASL Bloom. There are only three free lessons that can be accessed, while the rest are accessible by subscription. The three free lessons were Greetings, Alphabet A-L, and Alphabet M-Z. The other thing that I did not like about ASL Bloom is that they did not provide a warning or a note that there can be more than one way to sign a particular word. For example, in the greetings lesson, the words “same” and “fine” each have two different ways to sign. I ended up confused and went to YouTube to see which one is more accurate. 

Since there are no free daily lessons or free lessons that are not the alphabet and greetings, I would most likely be finding another app to use. However, if you are willing to pay the subscription, I would say that this app is an amazing app to use to learn ASL. 

Words and Phrases I Learned from ASL Bloom: House, Book, Drive, Hammer, Tree, Boat, How?, What?, Number, Fine, Same, I’m Fine, and Good Morning