DFI - Chromebooks and iPads

 How to use Explain Everything (EE) 

 

I use EE daily in my day to day teaching. It is a great app for showcasing students learning, getting creative and working towards being digitally fluent. While it is a great app for students it's even better for teachers. It gives teachers the opportunity to pre-create work so students can work independently. It's also a great way to display old lessons by using images, videos and audio clips so students can revisit their old learning.

Above is an example of todays follow up task of their Te Reo Māori. The students had to draw or colour in pictures of different images and label them with the different colours in Māori. It's an engaging activity for the student and breaks up the day of pen and paper. If you would like to see some other ideas of blogs, push on the link.

The only limitation to EE that I have noted is that it's not interactive when students upload to their blog. It can be uploaded as either a standard image or a video with an audio clip in the background. 

CREATE - Explain Everything

Below is a Cyber Smart recap for students I created on EE. The idea is that this is something students can go back to and look through if there is something they are not sure about regarding the topic Smart Relationships. Usually I would save this as a project which means students can download the EE and listen to the audio clips. 

Normally I would use students voices to explain what we have been talking about, that way it is both in student language and feels more like peer support rather than a teacher lecture. 

How to use a Chromebook

First time Chromebook user over here! Lots to be learnt. We focused a lot on shortcuts and how they can make navigating a Chromebook significantly easier. Above is one of the shortcuts (CTRL + F) I found the most useful and thought would be the most helpful for both students and teachers. Control F allows you to search for key words on a page or in a text. I wish I knew this shortcut when I was in University. 

Chromebooks have all the things you'd hope them to have on a learning device. For most students this is their first computer so they adapt quite quickly to the device. For those students who may have used a different device prior to their Chromebook, it may take a little bit longer to get used to. I personally found using the computer quite difficult because it was both smaller and I didn't have a compatible mouse so I had to use the touch pad for everything. However, I was able to do everything on the Chromebook that I would on my normal computer.