Halfway through the term – WOW!

The children have been using ‘Explain Everything’ to enable them to do many things.  It is a very powerful, open-ended app that does allow students to publish their work and to communicate their understandings using a movie or slideshow format.  It is also a ‘screencasting’ app which means that it records the action of the user or creator on the screen.

One thing we have found this app really great for is making learning visible.   Strange statement  isn’t it – “Making Learning Visible”??  By that we mean that the children can voice their thoughts and draw their corresponding actions in something like a maths sum.   See Abigail’s below.  In doing this, they are making the thought processes clear in their learning. This enables others to give them feedback and to reinforce their understandings or to modify their processes.  If it was a teacher giving this feedback, this teacher might correct some aspect of their understanding that requires modification.  On the other hand, this teacher might also be able to confirm that this student understands perfectly the process they are demonstrating.

The other powerful aspect of this kind of a product is that it can be used by kids to teach other kids.    This achieves several things.   It gives kids a purpose and this is important.   It can also be an extremely helpful way for other kids to learn as they are hearing and witnessing the thoughts of OTHER CHILDREN.  Ever heard of ‘the curse of knowledge?”  This refers to what happens sometimes when a knowledgeable person finds it hard to imagine what it is like for others who don’t understand a topic on which they are an expert.    This means that sometimes, another child is the best person to teach another child to do something.    In a maths sum, for example, the verbalisations of a fellow child may make it easier for child trying to understand something to ‘get it’.

 

This week I worked with a small group of students to assist them to make their creations more professional.  We talked about the use of a standard introductory slide which has an avatar or photograph of themselves and a title. This can then be inserted into Explain Everything every time they are creating a maths style tutorial.

We will be offering a parent workshop next week on Thursday afternoon on  the use of ‘Explain Everything’.  Parents will be using one of our iPads or one of their own to sit with their children and have a hands-on-experiences with using this app.  The aim of the activity is to give parents some insight into the sorts of activities their children have been doing.

 

Nicola

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