Tag Archives: Presentation

by | March 29, 2017 · 1:28 pm

Explain Everything: Collaborative Interactive Whiteboard App

Explain Everything is a “whiteboard style” presentation app you can use to create tutorials and presentations. It is also a powerful storytelling and learning tool that allows your students to work on the same project collaboratively. Using Explain Everything, you and your students can design, screen cast and create multimedia content with video, audio, imported or drawn images, text, etc.

Explain Everything is available for iOS, Chrome OS, Android, and Windows.

Paid app with some free trial features (varies depending on platform and license)

  • iOS, Chromebook, Android and Windows
  • Interactive screen-casting whiteboard
  • real-time collaboration
  • cloud content and link-based sharing

PS. Schools can get a special EDU plan by contacting the Explain Everything Team .

There are many whiteboard style apps available on the market, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses. This class of app allows teachers to create fairly high-quality, attractive tutorials and present information in a visually and engaging way. These apps can also be used by students to create presentations, lessons, tutorials, and more. Another application in a similar class is ‘VideoScribe‘ – it is powerful, proprietary software that UBC students, staff and faculty have access to through our LMS – learning management system.

An excellent purpose for whiteboard apps is in a formative or summative assessment. Rather than focusing on polished content for publication, students can be encouraged to ‘explain everything’ about a particular topic or ‘showme’ what you know (perhaps using ShowMe – a free white board style app).

This resource is great to use in a second language classroom such as French Immersion, Core French, etc.  It allows for students to creatively engage in language learning.

Read our Explain Everything Quick Start & Task sheet, then print & share it with your students if it’s their first time!

You can also read Explain Everything’s Comprehensive Guide HERE.

It only takes a few steps and a little practice to start using Explain Everything:

  1. First, go to the Explain Everything to download the app. You can also download it from the app store on the specific device that you’re going to use (eg. iTunes for iPad, Google Play for Android tablets, etc. )
  2. Next, sign up with your e-mail address and select which version you’re going to purchase.
  3. Then, click on the “+” button at the right top corner to create a new project. There are templates you can begin with and modify to meet your needs or you can start from scratch.
  4. Now it’s time to draw your elements and work on your animations and voice-overs!
  5. Want to use Explain Everything in your classroom? Here is a handout  Explain Everything BrittneyMerryweather that you can have a look!

Here is a video tutorial that will explain the most-used features of Explain Everything and help you to get started:

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by | March 28, 2017 · 1:56 pm

ThingLink: Annotate Images and Videos

Thinglink is a web-based and iOS / Android application that allows you to embed  audio, video and other rich media links directly into images and share them across the web. Using Thinglink, you can engage your students with images text, video, songs and sound clips allowing them to explore the concept or big idea of a unit or lesson.

Thinglink has a limited free version for educators (and various paid levels). The free version comes with enough features to allow you to create engaging interactive posters, maps or other artifacts and you can even create a class account for up to 100 students. You can link to and embed YouTube content, upload images and sound and add text blocks or titles. You can even embed 360° Videos and create interactive 360° images with embedded ‘hot spots’.

Thinglink is a tool that fits various subjects and different grades. As a teacher, you can use ThingLink to provide interactive professional learning experiences and present information to your students. It can also be used as an Augmented Reality tool in a field trips as well: you can work on a ThingLink map, and add multimedia information to different spots on the map. When students come to a certain place, they can click on the accordingly place on the map and be directed to the information you have prepared for them (such as Youtube videos, audio, images, or webpages!)

With a free teacher account, you can create a class group of (up to 100) students and do not need student personal information (emails or full names) in order to add students. Given that Thinglink is not Canadian housed, I would recommend avatar names or initials and also be sure to educate your students about privacy protection. To create multiple classes, you need a paid account.

In a Social Studies classroom, for example, students might use an historical image and add features (video, hyperlinks, text, sound) to the image in order to tell a story about a particular event or period in time. Hover your mouse of the example below to see images from the past and present integrated to tell ‘my’ story. Teachers might create a video of their own story to share with their students as inspiration for discussion or student-created stories.

1. Sign up: select the free education version and sign up with your email address. (You can always upgrade to pro after you try it, if you think you’ll use it and/or if you want to use it with your students)

2. Start: Click on the “Create” tab to start making your own interactive images and videos.

3. Tagging your image:

  • Click anywhere on the image to add your first tag
  • Click on the icon image to select an icon

4. Sharing Your Videos and Images

  • Open up the image or video and select the “Share” button
  • Either click on an icon for one of the linked platforms or copy and paste the URL or embed code
  • Sharing your image

For more detailed tutorials, go to ThingLink Standard Features Tutorial.

ThingLink in 3 Minutes or Less – highlights uses of the app:

 

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by | March 19, 2017 · 9:46 am

Camtasia

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Creative Commons licensed image courtesy of Betsy Weber flickr

Camtasia is a powerful proprietary video editing and screen-recording software that is available to UBC students, faculty and staff free of charge.

Features include:

  • Screen recorder
  • Webcam
  • Media import
  • Multi-track timeline
  • Annotations
  • Transition
  • Animations
  • Voice narrations
  • Audio and visual effects
  • Quizzes
  • Green screen editing

For a more detailed overview of the features of Camtasia click here to view the “At a Glance: Camtasia” document created by the Faculty of Education ETS office.

With Camtasia, you can create engaging videos which enable a form of accessibility that extends beyond traditional lectures. You can create your own quality videos that can then be used for a “flipped” classroom model OR be uploaded for students to view and review after your lesson.

Here is an assignment including “how-to” instructions  – a collaboration with Dr. Marina-Milner Bolotin in which teacher education students created science demo/explainer videos. Videos from this project can be found on Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin’s website.

The screen-capture function allows one to create video tutorials or record live lectures, aka Explainer Videos. You could also use your web camera for recording and video blogging. You can add annotations to the videos and record voice-overs that are useful when trying to guide the viewers or have additional information overlayed. In Camtasia, one can even do green screen video editing by filtering out the key chroma colour or manually erasing it out and overlaying the image over a background.

Being able to create in-video quizzes is another special feature of this software that gives additional benefits when creating teaching materials. Like most other video editors, Camtasia allows you to import media, clip videos, add special effects and track your editing on a timeline similar to iMovie.

For best practices when recording video in Camtasia click here.

  1. Go to https://ubc.onthehub.com
  2. Click the green “Start Shopping” button near the bottom of the page or the small “Sign in” link in the top right corner, log in with your CWL and click to accept the terms of use.
  3. Once signed in, click on the “Teaching & Learning” link located on the blue bar going across the page. The icon for Camtasia will appear along with other software below the blue bar.
  4. Click the Camtasia icon, then select which operating system you use (Windows or Mac) and click “Add to Cart” > “Check Out”
  5. Click “Download”,
  6. Once the download is complete, open the installation package
  7. Follow the prompts to complete the setup. Your license key will be displayed on the download page.

*If you need to access your license key again later, it can be retrieved under the “Options” link in the top right corner of the page. Navigate to “Your Account/Orders”, look up the order record for your copy of Camtasia and click “View Details”.

 

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by | March 16, 2017 · 12:59 pm

MindMup 2.0

MindMup 2.0 is a free mind-mapping tool that can be used for individual notes-taking, collaboratively planning, and for students to work collaboratively in classrooms.

To use Mindmup:

  1. Launch the website: https://www.mindmup.com/
  2. Click on “Get Started” and “Create a new Map” (if you wish to create a collaborative map, first select ‘google drive’ – that way collaborators can join with their google accounts (note that appropriate permissions for your particular teaching context will need to be considered)
  3. Double click the “Parent node” that appears in the center of the blank canvas, and input the center concept.
  4. Create “Child Node’, which is a sub-node added to the parent node, for your center concept.
  5. Create “Sibling Node” for your child nodes to connect them to the “Parent” node.
  6. Insert Images, Documents, and links to the nodes you want.
  7. Use the “Paint Can” icon to change the nodes’ color .
  8. Save your MindMap or share it with others via Google Drive.

As a teacher, you can use Mindmup 2.0 as a platform that your students could work on collaboratively to brainstorm and make visual connections between important concepts.  In addition, it can be integrated with Google Drive.  It’s easy to administer since students can work together on the same mind map using Mindmup 2.0 after logging in with their Google Account in contexts where this is allowable. Always be aware of the appropriate permissions, informed consent in your teaching context.

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by | March 7, 2017 · 8:33 am

Emaze

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Emaze is a web based tool (and Chrome extension) for creating presentations and describes itself as the next generation of presentation tools. You need to sign up for an account and then continue as a free account user. With this you will not have full functionality as you can’t download presentations as pdf files but you can share the presentations via email as a link.

 

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Emaze is another presentation application and it allows students to explore the potential and limitations of templates.  There are Education templates that are very interesting; Breaking News, Gallery 3D, and School Science.  Keep in mind that Emaze hasn’t been designed with kids’ use in mind, and some of the templates are definitely more useful for business presentations. For students to use on their own would recommend for intermediate students Gr. 5 and up.  The School Science template could be used by the teacher with primary students if they worked on a presentation with buddies.

Examples of Emaze presentations

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  • View Basics of Using Emaze
  • Go to https://app.emaze.com/mypresentations#/home
  • Register and then continue as a free account user.
  • Click the NEW box upper right corner. Create a new “presentation”.
  • Scroll to templates for Education. Select either Gallery 3D, or Breaking News, or School, or one of your choice.
  • Then edit the template adding your own content.
  • Share the presentation via email.

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by | March 6, 2017 · 11:32 am

Twine

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Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive nonlinear stories. Allows for the author to create a choose your own adventure style story or non-fiction narrative. Twine allows individuals to create what are referred to as “text-based” games. Aside from being free, it’s really not programming at all — if you can write a story, you can make a Twine game.  Examples: When Sneezles Attack,

You can also find a variety of Twine examples and templates on itch.io
There is an interesting Gr. 6 lesson plan for Twine found at Teacherslearningcode.

You can find a scholarly application of Twine here.

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This open source software is considered a text based gaming software and employs coding offering students an opportunity to write and share non-linear stories.  The benefits are that they will use language—beautiful language to engage a player and capture the hearts and minds of their characters and consider how story design can be built around verbs and objects to make players feel like empowered participants in a story.

This resource is great to use in a second language classroom such as French Immersion, Core French, etc.  It allows for students to creatively engage in language learning.

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View this excellent tutorial on Twine and visit the twinery.org cookbook for step by step instructions!

There are a few things you should know before you get started. Your work is saved only in your browser.  That means you don’t need to create an account to use Twine 2, and everything you create isn’t stored on a server somewhere else — it stays right in your browser. Use Chrome or Fire Fox. Do not use Safari.

Two very important things to remember. Since your work is saved only in your browser, if you clear its saved data, then you’ll lose your work! Use the Archive button often and publish individual stories to files using the menu on each story choose publish then save as an html file. When you go to work on your story again you will need to import the saved story file into Twine.   Secondly, anyone who can use this browser can see and make changes to your work.

  • Go to http://twinery.org/ Go to: Use it Online.
  • After Hi you can read the Tell Me More or just go to Skip.
  • On the right handside you will see in green +Story, click this.
  • Now name your story and +Add.
  • In the middle of a gridded screen see Untitled Passage which has a Rocket Icon by its title. This means this is the starting passage of your story.  The Bug Icon is used to test the story.
  • Harlowe is the default story format. You may also want to try story format—Sugar Cube. To get to the story formats go to the triangle drop down by the title of your story on the lower left side of the screen.
  • Important Commands
    Use square brackets to create a link to another passage [[ name of passage ]]
    Other commands that may be useful **Bold**, \Italics\
  • In Twine 2 you cannot embed any images or sound at this time.
  • When you are finished changing your story, publish it and save as an .html file.
  • When you go to continue working on your story go back to Twine and then upload your file.

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by | March 2, 2017 · 11:49 am

Layar – Augmented Reality Platform

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Layar is an augmented reality platform accessible via the web and mobile devices (iPads,iPhone, Android Tablets, and Android phones, etc.)

With Layar, you can upload “trigger” images and then add overlays like images, video, 3D animations and sounds to them either through the web application or on your own mobile devices. After creating your campaigns, you can make them public so that everyone with the app can easily get access to your campaigns.

With the Layar Creator, you can enhance flyers, postcards, packaging or any other item with interactive content, including video messages, websites, social links, music clips and much more.

 

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As virtual and augmented reality software and applications like Pokémon GO become more advanced and accessible to the average user, educators must ask themselves how this might benefit the educational community. The value in Layar is that it brings static content to life, turning an observational learning environment into a more interactive one.

So how could you use Layar in your classroom? The most popular way would be to add explanations with text and images. In this way, students can get more information in a more engaging way. In addition, Layar is a great tool to create educational posters with video, images or text.

Using Layar (or other similar AR tools), you will be able to grow student engagement with more interactions; in addition, with Layar, students can get access to updated educational materials without being in the classroom, which means they can study by themselves at home or via long-distance education!

 

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  • Download the Layar app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store depending on your device.
  • Sign up with your email, and create a username and password.
  • Take a picture of an object to act as a trigger. Layar works best with flatter triggers like pictures, posters, or patterns. The more detail in the image the better.
  • Upload the image either from your device or through the Layar Creator page. Create your first Campaign:

  • Add overlay content. When the trigger image is scanned the overlay content will be displayed. If you are creating the Campaign on your device you are limited to the default overlays that come with the application. Creating Campaigns through the web application allows you to upload 3D animations, sounds, images, videos, and links to each to make them interactive.

  • Make your campaign public to your audience.

 

Reference
Lens-FitzGerald, M., & Damyanov, N. (2014). Layar in Education . Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http://static.layar.com/website/Layar-Edu-Overview.pdf

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