Explain Everything

This week  was my chance to become one of my students and really become familiar with being able to use a Chromebook. I found this very useful and important because it is a tool that my students use every day. I always refer back to the saying that students are not at school to teach the teachers how to use these things so it was defiantly about time that I learnt how to use the devices that each of my students are on so that I am not needing them to teach me!

Before today I knew the basics I knew how to turn it and the ctrl shortcuts for copy, paste and cut but that was as far as my knowledge went. This session has allowed me to see how my students are using their Chromebooks and the opportunity to see some new tools that we can be using on class with our Chromebooks.

Today we also learnt about Explain Everything. This is a term that I have heard all of the time but not something I knew a thing about! It was one of those things where if people were talking about it I would smile and nod and get about my day! But explain everything is amazing, it is definitely something I will be trying to use in my class. I have a couple of students who has just arrived in New Zealand in the last couple of terms so the reading activities on the i-pads will be incredibly helpful for them. Below is a video I have created on an explain everything and what I have learnt and how I can use this in my class.



I am also going to explore over the weekend how to use this in my maths program so that there is the opportunity for rewindable learning. What I have been reflecting on a lot at the moment is how engaged my student's are when they are working independently so I want to use this to be able to make my teaching available when the students need it and be able to look back. I think by using this as a way to record the explanation and show the expatiation will be an incredible tool and asset to my teaching. This will give students the opportunity to come back as many times as they need to hear and understand the concept.

Watch this space I will be exploring this over the next few weeks and will let you know how I get on! I am very excited to see this in action.