New iPad app lets teachers post online lessons

Educreations has launched a new app for the iPad, as a free download in the App Store, that transforms the iPad into an interactive whiteboard that records a teacher’s voice and handwriting as they explain a concept or work through an example problem. Teachers can add photos to their lessons from the iPad’s Photo Library or camera, or a Dropbox account, and they can animate the photos by tapping and dragging. Finished lessons are hosted on educreations.com, where they can be shared privately with a class of students or publicly with everyone.

How It’s Different
It’s not the first recordable whiteboard application that’s been developed for the iPad. Other similar apps include ShowMe and ScreenChomp. However, Educreations stands apart from the other apps in terms of features, design and ease of use. Handwriting in the Educreations app is smooth and fluid, and looks and feels just like using a real whiteboard marker. It’s the only app out of the three that allows you to move and resize photos while you’re recording to create animations. Also, unlike the other apps, Educreations lets you create multiple pages, so you don’t have to erase the screen to give yourself more room. It’s evident that team Educreations put a lot of thought into building the features a teacher will need to record a lesson on the iPad.

One interesting caveat:
This app produces videos that cannot be viewed on an iPad. :(
Educreations is working on a fix for this and promises a solution soon along with several new features.

A couple of good examples...

example #1 - This example of a 3rd grade Math problem where the teacher uses an interesting problem-solving process
*Please click image to WATCH the lessonhttp://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/3rd-grade-problem-1/296693/

example #2 - This example explores the bones of the human body... the teacher builds the skeletal system from birth through adulthood.
*Please click image to WATCH the lesson

http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/the-skeletal-system/305796/

* For more information about FLIPPED CLASSROOMS, please visit:
http://edudemic.com/2011/12/real-flipped-classroom/

eNTRY POINTS - December newsletter

Please take a few moments to veiw the latest edition of eNTRY POINTS - a newsletter providing support for Digital Learning in the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board.

https://docs.google.com/a/wecdsb.on.ca/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=d2VjZHNiLm9uLmNhfG1hdGgtbWF0dGVyc3xneDoyM2JiMTY1YmVhM2EzNjkw&pli=1

More from the Google

Just announced Monday on their official blog, Google has created a site called Memories for the Future (or Build the Memories depending on where you look).

It works like the normal Google Streetview. When you drag the little Streetview icon over to one of the blue roads you will see the original (Before) Google Streetview image of that area. The difference is that once you have an image up, you can now click on the After tab and a picture will pop up of that area now.

Click on the image above or below to interact with this location. Be sure to rotate the view.

It is interesting to see how some areas were almost identical and others almost unrecognizable.

Google Loves Math

Up until now, Google was pretty good at math. You could type in an expression and it would try to evaluate it (sine of 30 degrees, 35^2 -450). Now Google has taken that a step further by integrating graphing into their search.

By simply typing in the function (sans the "y=") the graph shows up. You can rescale the axis with the zoom (the default is both axes but you can scale them individually as well). You can drag the position of the graph around. There is a point which can be dragged to show coordinates and you can put more than one function on at the same time by separating them by commas (they will come up in different colours)

The only limitation that comes to mind right now is that trig functions are limited to radian. I don't see a way to change the x scale to degrees. Let me know if anyone figures out how to do this. In the mean time, happy graphing.