Explain Everything says it all

Explain Everything ($2.99) is a very powerful whiteboard app, that does much more that ScreenChomp. But that doesn't mean that ScreenChomp is out of a job, but that teachers (and students) have to make crucial decisions about which tool for which task. ScreenChomp's great attribute is simplicity. Explain Everything's great attribute is power, but that power comes at the expense of learning time. *

Explain Everything is a very powerful and flexible app. It has a good array of tools, and as the video shows, the capacity to make multiple slides each with their own audio track. Everything is integrated very well, getting images from the Camera Roll, exporting to all the regular online services. It has value as a presentation tool as well as an explanation tools as I suggest in the video, for students to demonstrate learning. Having mentioned presentations, obviously there is the danger that it becomes just another format for tedious PowerPoint type presentations. It seems to me the new and powerful aspect of these whiteboard apps is that they create a new and very satisfying medium for students and teachers to present their thinking in a better way. The test is whether the video output from this app is significantly better in communicating than a traditional student project. I think the test of this is the reaction of other students to this form. If done half well, I suspect that these short videos will engage other students much more than traditional forms.

Returning to the comparison of this app to ScreenChomp. I think students and teachers should select the one that suits their task. If you want a very quick, short explanation, or you are learning the skills of this type of app, then ScreenChomp is fine. If you want to prepare a more complex and polished product, then Explain Everything is better.

* I'm using Blogsy to write this, and just inserted the image to the right... smooth as silk!

Learning by explaining with ScreenChomp

I went looking for an on-screen whiteboard app after seeing the amazing Kahn Academy instructional videos. ScreenChomp by TechSmith (Camtasia etc) is an elegant minimalist free app for all ages. It takes just a few minutes to learn what it does, and an instructor or student can get to work drawing on the screen and recording a voice message to explain.

It is so easy to use that teachers and students can use it to explain and explore on-the-go, sending quick help videos to others. This is surely a very good way to demonstrate learning, and explain concepts.
One can quickly do a screen capture, then insert this image into ScreenChomp and use the pen and voice to create an explanation, pose questions or complete an exercise.

There is no registration for the online space, and presumably there is a limit on storage. I suspect that there will be a fee in a while for extra storage and other features.

An island of fun on the Isle of Tune

I am not sure exactly which curriculum objectives The Isle on Tune addresses, but I am sure it is fun finding out.

Isle of Tune is a musical sequencing and composition app that is a delight to use ($A2.99). I have seen a 5 year old compose with it and it will challenge the skill of a musical adult. As the screen shot shows, there is a graphic layout that presents the musical score as a road. The music comes from roadside objects, triggered by the cars passing by. It is programming, really, requiring lots of logic and concentration. And there is immediate delightful feedback.
Best to see what the process looks like in this frenetic video.


I would love to see what a teacher with musical knowledge could do with this app with students anywhere from Year 3 to 12. While a 5 year old can create on this, the video shows that in order to get a satisfying piece of music, you have to know about rhythm, complementary notes and all sorts of music knowledge that I don't have. But of course you could work out a lot of this by trial and error on the Isle of Tunes.

The fun aspect of apps like this is a non-trivial problem. Obviously students of all ages (and grown ups) would first of all want to just play around and see what funny sequences can be composed. There is a real danger that some students at least would have difficulty getting beyond a 'fooling around' use of the app. One wouldn't want to remove this element, but the teacher would want students to move on to learning how to manage rhythm and repetition and so on to produce truly engaging music. Obviously an anti-fun teacher would be challenged by this sort of software.

Best school utility apps for the iPad

First published just a year ago, Oct 2010, I still rank all of these highly.

• GoodReader - file management
• Quick Office - word processor, spreadsheet, file management (alternative to Pages and Numbers)
• iThought HD - mind mapping 
• PhotoGene - photo editing
• Dropbox - cloud based storage, on mobile and PCs too
• Evernote - cloud based notes, audio, images storage and management, on mobile and PCs too
• Pages - Apple's word processor
• Numbers - Apple's spreadsheet

Updates: 

• with iOS 5 and iPad 2, anything on the screen of an iPad can readily be projected (see Apple TV)
• The need for image editing is reduces with basic editing now available in Camera Roll
• with iCloud, there is less need for other online storage systems.