Explain Everything As A Personal Review

Today, students started using the Explain Everything App to review concepts.  See their instructions. The problems refer to places in our textbook that give specific instructions on topics.  Students will be sharing the creations through the classroom Dropbox account.

Search Page Feature on iPad

Just showed students this feature while they were researching on iPad.

Instructional Reteaching Tool

I've always struggled with the best way to provide positive, individual feedback for assessments.  For the most part, students complete assessments quite well.  With the four or five students that struggle, giving them positive, constructive feedback is crucial.

Today, I created a video that discussed in detail steps to solve particular problems from the assessment.
I used SMARTboard notebook software, Camtasia, and a mouse.



Students watched at their own pace.  After they changed the answers on their paper, I conferenced with them individual about specific questions pertaining to the concepts.


I believe this to be a better method than large group discussion with all 26 students.  It doesn't force students who understand the concepts to view demonstrations of information they already know.

Episode 10 Safari vs.Rover and iTunes U

Explain Everything For One Form of Assessment

Students created an Explain Everything production based on the mathematical terms from our recent unit of study.  Having the Explain Everything app in the students hands again worked wonderfully.  As we have used it in Social Studies quite extensively, the learning curve for the tech tool was zero!  This allowed for the students to dive right into creating.

I am amazed at how engaged the students are while performing this task.  I asked numerous students whether they liked this or if they felt it was a waste of their time.  All of them said they liked it.

I did assess them on their knowledge of the information.  This will be included with their written assessment as a final evaluation of their knowledge from Chapter 7.

After students complete the creation, they will be emailing me the production.

As the video states, I will either need to open these email files with a Mac or use a video converter as the files do not have sound on a PC.





After the students emailed me their movie, I downloaded all of the productions.  With YouTube's uploading ability of more than one video in a single click, the whole process did not take long.
Student videos are included...

Individual Teaching After Assessment

In the old days, I would teach the review the entire quiz with the entire class.  Even if students would have a perfect paper, they would need to sit through explanations of items they already knew.

Using iPads, allows for a video to be created with helpful tips to solving problems of the day.  In the mean time, students receive one on one instructions to reteach items that were not understood on the quiz.

Works perfectly!

New Digital Hub Set Up

The discovery and use of the Reflection App has allowed for a new set up in my classroom.

Google Form For Math Assessment

I tried something slightly different yesterday.  I had the students complete a paper copy of their math quiz.  After their quiz was completed, I allowed them to access a Google form that presented the math quiz in digital format.  This format contained places to enter their answers.

I felt that with this group of students, having the iPad present while they completed the test was a distraction.  Having all the focus on the assessment followed by students entering their answers digitally allowed for more concentration.

The process still allowed me to gather data so that I can see through numerous data sheets the level of understanding and direction for reteaching.
 

Problem Solving To Understand Concept

This activity really didn't involve the iPads, but it did involve problem based learning on a small scale.

Reflection App For Monitoring Student iPads

Thanks to Tony Vincent's Learning in Hand, I learned about the Reflection app for Mac.  I decided to try to use this app for monitoring student use on iPads.  It works, but only up to 3 at a time.  As soon as I click on the fourth iPad, the Reflection app crashes.

Three iPads are the maximum!

See how it worked.