My journey with the Power Platform has been running for the last 3 years. I’ve loved it since I first found it, when I was using Microsoft Forms and wondering what I could do with the data that is being saved. That’s when I discovered Power Automate and the rest as they say is history.
There are so many business cases that can be streamlined and improved with this technology and I write about that and the features of the Power Platform in this blog.
This post is slightly different though. I have two daughters Esme (5) and Tilly (3). They truly are my world, they wrap me round their fingers like no other person can, but that’s the Dad territory that I’m in. I love it. Disclaimer, lets see how this post ages when they are teenagers ;)
A couple of years ago, I sat down with Esme and showed her my computer. She was intrigued as to what it could do and a spark was lit. I asked her if she wanted to help me build a Canvas App, she agreed as long as she could choose some pictures. The Home Screen was born:
All the key characters are there ! There is Paul the pug, Priscilla the pig, Colin the cat and Dave the Antelope’s head (?).
Next we needed a screen for both of my daughters. They had slightly different needs. Esme, has issues saying words that begin with the letter S. For example, instead of saying “school” she would say “cool”. i thought it would be a good idea to have a selection page that would take her into tricky words she couldn’t say and initial sounds, among other options:
There is nothing too complex about this app, it’s just links to other pages accessed by buttons. For the “Difficult Words” area, I picked out some words that I knew she would find difficult to say, and then record my voice saying the word and giving an example as to how the word could be used.
For example:
This would help Esme to remember these words and get her to repeat and understand their use. For the S sounds screen, it was very similar just with more words:
My other daughter was having some attachment issues. This area was built as a second iteration to the app, It was also in lockdown and I felt that it would be difficult for her to maybe remember key family members, so I made a screen for her which showed her pictures of key family members and I would announce their name:
What I am trying to convey here is that the Power Platform isn’t just for business it can help in many other ways as well. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I will continue to get my daughter’s involved in this area as I think it really is the future and I’m all in.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve done anything like this, I’d love to hear from you.