Google Hangout with Reshan Richards

Today we talked with the creator of one of our favorite apps, Explain Everything. Reshan Richards teaches in New Jersey and is the Director of Education Technology in his school; the self described app designer has a blog, The Constructivist Toolkit and can be contacted through twitter.
We met Reshan at the MassCUE conference in October and attended his presentation on his teaching philosophy and his app. Afterwards we introduced ourselves and told him a little bit about Rockets Help Desk.  We asked him if he would do a Google Hangout with us, which we did today.



In our chat, we asked Reshan about his own use of technology in the classroom and his experience in a one-to-one school. Reshan gave honest and in depth answers about how supportive the administration was toward the tech integration at his school, parent and student response, and why he felt the need to create an app that centered on giving students choice and freedom in an educated way.

To hear more from Reshan Richards watch his Ted Talk "About Assessment".

Another Storytelling App for Classroom Use: 30hands

        Storytelling apps are great to use in order to teach an audience about something specific in a short amount of time. It can be used for biology- to show mitosis or evolution, it can be used for history- to tell a brief story from the past, it can also be used for foreign language- to work on linguistic skills while being creative. This storytelling app is called 30hands. Projects can be created on the mobile app and published using the website. 30hands also does have some in app purchases which are drawbacks. But otherwise 30hands can be great for in class use no matter what the topic happens to be about.

A tutorial of the app is available:

Educreations Tutorial

Tired of making yet another PowerPoint Presentation? Are you looking for a new, fun way of making projects? Educreations allows you to create projects or presentations that end up in a video format, rather than just a bunch of slides. It can be accessed through an online browser, or downloaded as an app on mobile devices. Here is a video tutorial on the basics of Educreations.

Below is a picture of the app version of Educreations. Making an account on Educreations is a great thing to do because it allows you to save your creations as well as share them with others. You can also search for other people's creations and save your favorites. 

Once you begin a new project, there are many different tools you can use to make it. Tools include the pen, which comes with a variety of colors, and the eraser which allows you to erase any unwanted writing. You can also add text, pictures, and even record audio. When recording audio, Educreations also captures what you do on the screen, so when you finish your project it plays like a video. 

Educreations can be used to make projects for any subject, such as History or Science. 

Here is a link to a History project made with Educreations:

French Revolution of 1830 

Here is a link to a Chemistry demonstration made with Educreations: 

How to Read a Periodic Table/ Element

Once you know your way around Educreations, it can be used as a valuable tool to make projects or presentations.