“Clicker gives them the independence to write on their own.”

Karen Baca and Heidi Donahoe are Assistive Technology Specialists in the Berkeley Unified School District, which serves more than 9,000 students. Since 2016, the district has relied on Clicker to help students with Extensive Support Needs (ESN) access the general education curriculum. Today, Clicker is used across grade levels - primarily on iPads - to support inclusion and give students meaningful ways to participate in classroom learning. 

All students have ideas - but some struggle to get them on the page 

For Karen Baca, many of her students learn in inclusion classrooms. 

“The majority of the students I serve who are using Clicker are in elementary school,” Karen explains. “It’s really to provide them access to the general Ed curriculum. It’s one of the best tools we have for that population.” 

Heidi Donahoe often uses Clicker to assist students needing significant support with writing. 

“Most frequently it’s for students who are having a really hard time formulating - even just a sentence or a paragraph - and need a lot more support with structure, spelling, and word finding,” she says. 

At the same time, Heidi has also used Clicker in more advanced ways, particularly as a tool for word banks and high-frequency word lists. “I’m thinking of a few students I have who need extra support with spelling, but already have their ideas there,” she adds. 

The simple shift that turned writing into a shared experience 

Karen emphasizes how Clicker’s built-in supports spark student engagement. “For one of my students, being able to bring in visuals was huge,” she explains. “We co-constructed his work by going online and finding the images he wanted to use to represent different things in his writing.” 

The multimodal features helped him stay motivated, while Clicker’s text-to-speech function provided essential reinforcement. 

“The text-to-speech feedback is so important for my kids,” Karen says. “Once they form a paragraph, they can hear the whole thing read out loud - and they want to share it. They’ll show their peers, their teacher, and their aid. It’s so nice that they can do that once the paragraph is finished.” 

Heidi values the guided writing supports for building students’ confidence. She also loves that they’re all within one platform, so she doesn’t have to piece together different tools or ask students to understand multiple systems. “What makes Clicker stand out for me is the guided order feature. It really helps when a student is struggling, because it gives them a starting point so they’re not all over the place.” 

She also adds: 

“Clicker combines predictive text, the keyboard, and customizable Word Banks altogether. That provides so much more support and makes it easier to tweak for individual students. Sometimes the setup you design might not have everything the student wants, or they might want to add or change something. With Clicker, they can - and that flexibility makes a big difference.” 

Writing outcomes in action 

Karen’s story 

Karen recalls one standout success story from the past year. 

“I had one student where Clicker was his primary writing tool,” she explains. “He struggles to even recognize the alphabet year after year and really struggles with emergent literacy.” 

Despite those challenges, the student was in a fifth-grade general education classroom. When the class was assigned to write a persuasive paragraph - framed as an advertisement - the student chose to write about chips. 

Working together, Karen and the team co-constructed customized Sentence Sets that gave him the structure to express his ideas. “We asked, ‘What kinds of things can we say about chips?’ and then built out the sentences,” Karen shares. 

The results exceeded expectations. The classroom teacher was so impressed that he projected the student’s Clicker writing onto the screen, allowing him to share his full presentation with the class. “That was my real big success story last year,” Karen reflects. “...and I have so many others!” 

Heidi's story 

For Heidi, Clicker has been transformative in giving students independence in their writing. 

“There are a few students who wouldn’t even be writing if they didn’t have Clicker. Otherwise, someone else would be doing the writing for them. Clicker gives them independence to write on their own.” 

At several elementary schools, Heidi has seen Clicker being used for daily journal entries, giving students a consistent, low-pressure way to practice writing. 

“They’re not as resistant to writing now,” she notes. “And it lets them share with their families what they did, which is really meaningful.” 

She also recalls a particular student who had previously relied almost entirely on adult support to complete writing assignments. 

“She wouldn’t have been writing on her own at all. Last year, I was able to give her the opportunity to write with the class and have some autonomy over what she was writing, so the instructional aid wasn’t doing it all for her. We set Clicker up for different writing assignments - even things like Paw Patrol, which she loved. She was so much more excited and less resistant to writing. It’s amazing.” 

From one district to many: sharing success across the SELPA 

Because Karen’s seen Clicker work across ability levels, she advocates for its adoption throughout her region. She’s encouraged other districts in her SELPA to take a closer look at it for their own students. 

For her, the value is clear. 

“It’s just such a strong tool for our kids who struggle with writing. There’s not a lot out there - I’ve checked and tried to make other things work. This is the one tool that, like Heidi was saying, we can really level to meet the needs of the student.” 

The way inclusion should be: students seen as equals 

Karen also highlights the social value of inclusion: 

“Clicker gives students access, and I can tell you their peers really respect that they’re doing the same work in their own way. That’s the strength of having Clicker for our ESN kids in general education classrooms - it shows they’re right there with everyone else. And that’s incredibly valuable.” 

If not Clicker, then what? 

Heidi echoes this sense of urgency, pointing out that not having Clicker as part of your district’s toolkit inevitably leaves some students behind. 

“If they’re not using Clicker, then what are they using? Because if a district doesn’t even have a single license, then there are kids who aren’t writing - or they’re not writing to their full potential. There are definitely students in every district - at least one - who need something like this to bridge the gap and stay engaged in grade-level curriculum.” 

Karen and Heidi agree that Clicker goes beyond writing support. It opens doors to learning, builds student independence, and supports inclusion. And as Heidi puts it: 

“If they’re not using Clicker, then what are they using?” 

See how other districts are using Clicker to give every student a way into writing. Explore more and book a Clicker discovery call now.