Thursday, January 8, 2015

Living worksheets - The evolution of the worksheet

A traditional educational practice has been the use of the worksheet. Although projects are assigned, and students have many unique learning experiences, on a day to day classroom basis, becoming educated always seemed to include the worksheet.

Until now.

With the introduction of the tablet into the classroom, having students use "living worksheets" created with an App called Explain Everything can transform how students create, learn and master concepts.  

Explain Everything can be used by teachers to make "living" templates that can be manipulated by students. This technique allows for increased teacher control while still allowing the students to demonstrate their creativity and understanding.  The teacher begins by creating a screen-cast. The only difference is the teacher does not annotate, explain or move any of the objects. They save the presentation as a project file instead of a video and upload it to the web for the students to access. Students open their own copy on their device and manipulate what the teacher has created. Almost like a "living worksheet", the final product includes animation, audio and annotation.  Students then export the final project as a video to share.  The following templates in Science show how this tool has helped students understand concepts that are traditionally hard to master.

This first example in Chemistry is a teacher template that was created to teach students how to balance chemical equations.  Students can move molecules to help visually count the number of atoms on each side of an equation.  They can add audio and annotate  the problems by changing the coefficients (numbers).

Balancing Equations  Explain Everything template (must be opened on an iPad in Explain Everything)

Balancing Equations - Student Product.


The next example was first created by an 8th grade student (Dana) while learning about the phases of the moon.  There was no assignment, she decided on her own to model the Sun, Moon and Earth in Explain Everything so that she could manipulate the moving parts.  Her project was so well done that I asked to keep her file and share it with the other students in the class.

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Phases of the moon Explain Everything template (must be opened on an iPad in Explain Everything)


Student product: Click video below




Explain Everything really can do everything.  How will you be able to make it help your students?



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