Saturday, December 31, 2011

New iPad app lets teachers post online lessons



Educreations has launched a new app for the iPad, as a free download in the App Store, that transforms the iPad into an interactive whiteboard that records a teacher’s voice and handwriting as they explain a concept or work through an example problem. Teachers can add photos to their lessons from the iPad’s Photo Library or camera, or a Dropbox account, and they can animate the photos by tapping and dragging. Finished lessons are hosted on educreations.com, where they can be shared privately with a class of students or publicly with everyone.


How It’s Different
It’s not the first recordable whiteboard application that’s been developed for the iPad. Other similar apps include ShowMe and ScreenChomp. However, Educreations stands apart from the other apps in terms of features, design and ease of use. Handwriting in the Educreations app is smooth and fluid, and looks and feels just like using a real whiteboard marker. It’s the only app out of the three that allows you to move and resize photos while you’re recording to create animations. Also, unlike the other apps, Educreations lets you create multiple pages, so you don’t have to erase the screen to give yourself more room. It’s evident that team Educreations put a lot of thought into building the features a teacher will need to record a lesson on the iPad.

One interesting caveat:
This app produces videos that cannot be viewed on an iPad. :(
Educreations is working on a fix for this and promises a solution soon along with several new features.

A couple of good examples...

example #1 - This example of a 3rd grade Math problem where the teacher uses an interesting problem-solving process
*Please click image to WATCH the lessonhttp://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/3rd-grade-problem-1/296693/



example #2 - This example explores the bones of the human body... the teacher builds the skeletal system from birth through adulthood.
*Please click image to WATCH the lesson


http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/the-skeletal-system/305796/






* For more information about FLIPPED CLASSROOMS, please visit:
http://edudemic.com/2011/12/real-flipped-classroom/










1 comment:

David Petro said...

Always neat to have easy ways to flip the classroom. However, I just read this post about why students may not want to use this type of video (using the Khan Academy as an example)
http://blog.harshpatel.net/education/2012/1/8/why-dont-students-want-to-watch-khan-videos.html

 Stay up to date with Google Workspace Updates! Click on the icon to visit the subject-specific blog.