How I use Explain Everything

Some ideas.....

Import a student essay/piece of work and record your feedback and an-

notations around it. This will create a video file which they can replay

over and over again.... And have the benefit of your wisdom over and

over again.... What could be better?

Import a poem or text (or a source/activity/document, whatever suits

your subject) and create a video of your thoughts and annotations around

it. Upload it for revision, for all your students to use. I have done this in

the past with great success, my Year 11s found it very useful over

Easter!

Turning that idea on its head, you could give the same task to every stu-

dent in the room, ask them to take the lead annotating a piece of text/

source etc and explain everything they know about it. Collate the student

videos and upload for revision. Suddenly, with very little effort on your

part, you will find you have created a huge bank of revision resources

for your class. I would use this by giving every student a page of a

chapter, for example, to annotate and explain. This then ensures you

don’t have to review the same chapter/idea in the lesson therefore giving

you more lesson time whilst putting the students in control of their

learning.

Import an exemplar essay/excellent piece of work. Record a video where

you go through WHY it is so excellent in detail. This is a great task to

do with exam style questions as then your students will be able to watch

that video over and over again, before they start their response, giving

them tips and strategies for success.

In the style of an Oxbridge tutorial, you could also ask your students to

do the same with their own work. They would have to send you a video

explaining the ideas and analysing their own piece of work. This is a

really challenging task for students and will ensure that they really spend

the time THINKING about what they produce, rather than just thrashing

it out in half on hour on the computer and handing it in without even

proof reading!

Import your PowerPoints as video files and upload to Wordpress. If you

are really brave, you could actually record your lesson as you go through

the PowerPoint and then upload it for your students. This is scary but

excellent for absent pupils!

Give a student a stimulus text/idea/question/statement to debate in the

app, and get them to create a video of the music/research/webpages/

ideas/connections which have informed their ideas. This is great for

creative work or in more drama based lessons. Or, it is just a great way

of ‘exploding’ a concept, but putting your students in the driving seat!

Explain Everything.... Explained! By Helen Stevens

This is your home screen. It will be blank

until you start saving projects.

However, as the iPad doesn’t have that

much storage. It is advisable you save your

projects and then export them to YouTube/

Google Drive/Dropbox frequently so it

doesn’t clog up your device. More on that

later...

Click on this button

to get started on a

new project!

Click on this button

to import a document

or powerpoint saved

to your Dropbox /

Google Drive ac-

Click on a colour

template...

This is now your first slide of

your Explain Everything file.

Some images may be different as

it has recently been updated, but

the same functions remain. The

best way to understand these func-

tions is to just have a go.

This button is very useful. It allows you to add in

pictures/videos/web pages to discuss and use in

your presentation/video explanation.

If you want to add a picture it

will take you to this page

which shows your photos. It is

a good idea to save the photo/

image you need to your camera

roll first so it is ready and wait-

ing for you.

To do this, find the image you

need on the internet or from a

file on foldr/email it to your-

self. Open the image, then

press and hold the power but-

ton and home button together,

this will take a screen shot of

the image and will automati-

cally save it to your camera

This is quite fun; you can

use a web browser through

Explain Everything. I.e.

YouTube clips can be

paused and discussed at key

points. It is also good for

students using the app—

you can get them to

‘explain everything’! Very

useful for a variety of

different lessons!

You and your students can also

take a video within your

video....

How to create a video resource from

scratch!

Ask the student

to send you an

email with the

piece of work

attached

Here is a step by step guide to marking/providing personal video feedback for a piece of work. However, the

steps are the same if you want to create a video revision file, where you annotate or explain a source document/a

concept. You should be able to adapt from the following guide....

Open the document

from your email by

pressing on the file

and waiting for it to

download, you will

need wifi to do this.

You will then see

the piece of work on

a screen like this.

Press this button in the top

right hand corner. This is the

universal symbol on the iPad

for ‘sharing’ a document with

another application.

Scroll along the ‘apps’ to the pic-

ture of Explain Everything and

select ‘Open in Explain Every-

thing’.

You will now see

this screen where it

will load the docu-

ment into ‘Explain

Everything’. Wait

patiently.

When the document is loaded into Ex-

plain Everything, you can use the

pointer tool/pen tool to annotate/explain

things to the class if you were doing this

‘live’.

However, if you are creating a personal

video resource which will essentially

record your words of advice/feedback

for the student, you can press the record

button. Once pressed this will record

your voice as well as any annotations

you make to the document. It will record

it slide be slide, and you don’t necessar-

ily have to do it in one ‘take’. However,

that is slightly more complicated, so I

would come and ask me if you find

yourself in that situation!

Here you can see me making

marking annotations whilst

recording my feedback. It

cuts down the need to write

anything down. I use this for

more important, longer and

more complex pieces of

work, which would usually

take me hours to mark. Have

you ever had the feeling

when you are marking and

trying to write down an

elaborate explanation that it

would be so much easier if

you just could explain it to

them.... Well Explain Every-

thing helps you do just that!

This timing bar tracks how

long you have been recording.

When you finish recording,

you will see the total time of

your recording.

You can pause your recording

by pressing the pause button.

And then start again by re-

pressing ‘record’.

You can listen and watch

it back again, by pressing

the play button, but be

ready to cringe at

everything you have

said!

Now it comes to exporting

the document so you can

send it back to the student/

make it available to your

class. You need to press

this button and then you

will see the following

options.

Choose where you wish to save it. I like

to use Google Drive for sharing videos as

it has a huge amount of storage space and

ONLY the student with the link you send

will be able to view it. HOWEVER, you

can also make an unlisted YouTube

video which works the same.

When you have chosen where

you want to save it, press

‘export’.

Choose the name to

save it under and

press ‘OK’

You will

see a list of

your previ-

ous saved

videos

here...

When you have selected a

name for your file and

pressed OK, you will see

this screen where it com-

presses it into the right

format. Be aware that this

may take some time, en-

sure you internet connec-

tion does not drop or you

will have to start again.

It will then automatically

upload to your chosen

place.

Hopefully you will then see

this message and you are

done!

The BASICS: How to export and

save your

presentation

Press this button and you will see this page, this

allows you to save to your Dropbox and Google

Drive/YouTube account, thereby saving space on

your iPad. You will need to have linked these to-

gether before hand, but it is not difficult and I will

help you with that today, if you haven’t got an

account.

You will see this page and

make sure you save it in the

format you want. I.e. If it is

a video you will need to

save it as a video....

The simple way to save your

presentation is just this but-

ton. This will mean it will

save to your home page like

this:

But remember, too many and you will run out of storage, so it is better to export when you can!