Don't Be Scared!

Have you ever wanted to try something really bad, but you don’t because you are afraid of the unknown?  That is how I felt about Twitter for several years.  I created a Twitter account when I first heard about tweeting on television.  I did the basic account creation stuff, and that was about it for a couple of years.  I didn’t really see the point in it or even understand how it worked.  I stuck with Facebook because it was what I was comfortable with, and I knew it like the back of my hand.  Over the past year, I have started to really pick up the frequency of tweets with classroom pictures, school events, and shout outs.  This past Summer, I really learned how effective of a network Twitter can be if you know how to use it.  I took an Education Technology class, and we had to participate in educational chats on Twitter several times for assignments.  I’m not going to lie, I was seriously overwhelmed by the pace of the chats, what to read, who to pay attention to, and how to keep up with everything in the chat the very first time I joined.

The second time was a little bit easier though.  I voiced my struggles through tweets on my account and got several suggestions that really helped.  The best suggestion was to use Tweetdeck, which allows you to set up columns of different things going on with Twitter, so you can have them all on your screen at one time.  You can organize it however you want.  I have a couple people who I follow religiously, so their feed comes up on those columns, then I have any chat I am involved in, mentions of me, my news feed, and my notifications in other columns.  It’s a little crazy at first, but you get used to it, and it makes everything so much easier to follow.  There are 15 different categories you can set up.

The other piece of advice that helped me during chats was to not try to focus on every single comment made.  In the first few minutes, you tend to find the people who are talking about what you want/need to hear.  If you stick to following those people throughout the chat, the whole process is much easier.  I have met several people through chats, who I follow regularly, and have shared so much priceless information with me.  One of the coolest things that happened was when I got to meet several of them when I went to ISTE this summer.  Twitter has helped me change the way I teach, keeps me motivated, and inspires me to be a better teacher.  I highly recommend giving it a try and fight through the fear of the unknown!

Til next time…

BRI

Explain Everything

Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a great Friday.  I am going to talk a little bit about an app called Explain Everything.  This is a whiteboard app for the iPad, and it works best with the iPad Pro, with an Apple Pencil or other writing device.  I first learned about Explain Everything when I was at ISTE this past Summer in San Antonio.  The session was actually about sketchnoting, but I have found so many uses for the app, that I just have to share it with you.

   Explain Everything is an app that you can write and draw in while the screen is being recorded.  Basically, it records what you draw as you draw it, with or without sound.  I created my first video on my flight home from Texas.  The first thing I thought of when I was learning about this was the "Draw My Life" videos so many people have posted on YouTube over the past few years.  I decided to use it to present some things I learned from ISTE to the school board.  The app is very easy to use. You literally hit the record button and start drawing.  You can edit the recording in two separate parts, one for audio, and one for the actual video.  So, if I want a picture on my presentation, but I don't want to show all of my mess ups and waste a bunch of time, all I have to do is delete the part of me drawing it, and have the video pick back up once it is completed.

   As of this Summer, there was no way to speed the video recording up so you could talk over it at a decent pace.  I just uploaded my recording into iMovie and sped the video up, then, added the audio of me speaking over the video playing.  The process was actually really easy to do.  Since my first video, I have used Explain Everything to make a ton of tutorial videos for my math classes, and it helps with sort of flipping the classroom to an extent.  I have included my video in the blog to show you an example of a final product. Let me know if you have any questions or comments about the app.  The last feedback I received from EE stated that they are working on a way to speed up the recording of the drawing once you are finished.

Til next time!

BRI