@SirSolo

A new toy (I mean tool) for a New Year

Whilst on our Christmas holidays in India, I tried my best to switch off from all things technology (Jade’s request). Although, the iPad did come in handy a few times, particularly with Twitter where we received some good advice on India from a few people in my PLN. @Liz_Halina, who teaches in Delhi, gave us a few great tips on where to go and we almost managed to meet up for chai, but sadly couldn’t quite meet.

Whilst browsing Twitter, I learned of the new Educreations tool which allows you create your own screen casts and lessons to share. You can create straight from your iPad or online. At first viewing, it looks awesome. A simple interface lets you record what you type or write (my stylus will now get some usage), and you can add photos, record your voice and add extra slides etc. I have been creating screen casts for a while now using Explain Everything, but have found it a little unstable and slow when saving projects. I am excited to give the new tool a go and hope to be able to create some fun lessons for my students.

The site lets you create lessons using your interactive whiteboard too. I have a colleague (Matt Prince) who teaches maths and uses the whiteboard incredibly; he records most of his lessons for his students to access later. He hits record when writing key points or formulas and then pauses again. All his lessons are then available in short snippets for his kids to review at home. I have been doing similar things and Educreations will be great to enhance this.

Also, having experimented with ‘flipping the classroom’ of late, I was looking for a better screen cast tool…This is hopefully it. I will see how it goes using it both to record lessons so students can revisit them later (or can see the lesson if absent) and also to provide pre-instruction as a homework activity when flipping. I look forward to getting involved…