If you attended this week's all school faculty meeting, you already saw this week's Tech Tool in action! This week's highlighted tool is Prezi, an online presentation maker. According to Prezi's website, "Prezi is cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between presentations and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. The result: visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery."
Explain Everything is a screen recording app for iPads that lets you turn your iPad into your very own interactive whiteboard. Write or draw and explain as you go, and the app will record your voice and movements and create a video! You can either write on a blank screen or import pictures and annotate them. In addition, you can enter text and shapes. At the end, you will have a video that you could email to a student or post on Veracross. If you've ever heard of Khan Academy, this is a way to create videos just like the ones you would find there!
What could you do with Explain Everything? How about using it as an assessment tool to determine whether students understand a concept? You could put them in groups and ask them to write a script for a video in which they explain a concept they learned in class. They could then create the video and email it to you for evaluation.
Another idea would be to use Explain Everything to create your own videos explaining concepts you taught in class. You could then post these videos on Veracross for your students to access. For students who have difficulty grasping a concept the first time it is taught, this could be a great way to give them another opportunity to learn the material.
Here are two examples of ways that our own faculty members have used Explain Everything in their classes! One is a video created by Mark Churchill's 6th grade math students explaining a math concept. The second is a video created by middle school students that gives directions around San Francisco in Chinese.
This week's Technology Tool of the Week is a pair of websites called BrainPOP (3-12) and BrainPOP Jr. (K-3). Here you can find a treasure trove of educational movies, quizzes, activities and homework help for kids. The content covers a wide range of topics across many subject areas, ranging from science and math to arts and music. In addition, BrainPOP content is mapped to Common Core and state standards.
Using BrainPOP videos and activites is a great way to introduce a new topic or explain a difficult concept. Best of all, kids love BrainPOP! BrainPOP movies are hosted by two cute and funny cartoon characters, Tim and Moby. The videos make learning new concepts interesting and fun.
To explore the BrainPOP resources, simply register for a free trial. While some of the content on BrainPOP is free, much of it can be accessed only if you have a subscription. If you like what you see, let me know. If there is enough interest we can purchase a school subscription. (Helpful hint: every week BrainPOP features one FREE movie! Go to the website to see the free movie of the week.)
Also check out BrainPOP's free iPhone/iPad app. Using this app you can watch a different animated movie each day and test your knowledge with an interactive quiz. (Consider recommending this app to your students as well; it is designed for kids of all ages!)
Finally, don't miss out on BrainPOP's free community for teachers, BrainPOP Educators. This is BrainPOP's space for teacher support. Here you can search by grade or by standard to find related videos. Teachers can also find and share lesson plans. In addition, BrainPOP Educators includes a Curriculum Calendar that shows which free featured videos are coming up.
For more information on BrainPOP or for help figuring out the best way to use it in your class, please contact me!
To see a sample BrainPOP movie (plus get an introduction to the BrainPOP site), check out the video below:
Welcome back and Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a restful break.
This week's highlighted technology tool is an iPad app called Puppet Pals. Puppet Pals is an easy-to-use app in which students can create simple animated movies. The first step is to choose characters for the story from a wide variety of cartoon characters. Next, choose one or more backdrops. Then it is time to record! Students can move the characters on the screen as they tell their story. Movements and audio are recorded in real time. The final product is an animated movie that you can post on your class website, email to parents, share with the rest of your class, and more! Students can even use their own photos to create characters or backdrops.
The beauty of this app is that it can be used across grade levels and subject areas. For younger students, Puppet Pals could be used to teach storytelling skills. Older students could use Puppet Pals to explain and illustrate a vocabulary word, science concept, or math problem. For Chinese classes, students could write and record a story using vocabulary they are learning in class. The possibilities are endless!
Please let me know if you would like me to show you how to use Puppet Pals. It's easy to learn and fun to use! I can also help you brainstorm ideas for how you could use Puppet Pals in your class. If you are interested in watching a tutorial video, here is a link to one created by the designers of the app.
To get a taste of what Puppet Pals looks like, check out how one teacher used Puppet Pals with his 3rd graders:
