J. Ouellette | UBC-MET | ePortfolio
Group Project: Explain Everything Tutorial
ETEC 533Â | ARTIFACT TWO
This course gave me the opportunity, yet again, to take the time to make theoretical links to student-centered inquiry, set in a socially collaborative context.
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Explain Everything is one of my favorite apps. In the proposal below, my brilliant group and I illustrate how amazing it is for personalized "flipped" lessons that cater to student needs in the classroom.
The application is also a very versatile tool, with it's infinite whiteboard, to make thinking visible and support the skills of reflection and metacognition.
(D'Souza, C., Hsueh, J., Ouellette, J., & Ray, R., 2016a)
After completing the vision for our inquiry and website (i.e. proposal above), we began building our web-based resource (click on image below). The intended audience of this resource is aimed at educators looking to gain skill within the application. We also wanted to make connections with the medium to modern theory, and provide some examples of what it could look like in the classroom.
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Part of the assignment's task was to share the information in a medium that members of the group were not experienced in. None of my group members had tried Google Sites from a synchronous collaboration perspective, so we were willing to give it a go.
(D'Souza, C., Hsueh, J., Ouellette, J., & Ray, R., 2016b)
To reflect on using Google Sites as a medium, I would say it is great for basic vision and purpose. It does allow for synchronous collaboration, but adding in forums, and even sectioning off your site with tables proves troublesome for the average user. There's an age old adage in teaching/life of not reinventing the wheel. In this case, Weebly is the wheel that makes collaborative website building a cinch.
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In my classroom, Explain Everything and Book Creator are always two of my most employed digital options for students displaying their understanding of concepts. It works extremely well for varied assessment of learning and already has so much formative assessment built into the creating and sharing of artifacts. Both applications offer the ability to draw, add voice, photos and more. Explain Everything does take things further, as you can animate and record whilst talking, which really amplifies the creative potential to one of limitless possibilities. It is also good for just about any age with its ability to simplify the interface for younger users.
My students and I use it for illustrating everything from math concepts to presenting how things change over time in our inquiries.