Explain Everything

Many of my students have begun to use Explain Everything as a means of communicating their thinking in mathematics.  It provides kids with the opportunity to record their thinking in a variety of ways (i.e. orally, visually, and in writing).  It also lets students record and then listen back to their own explanation so that they can self-assess to determine if they have clearly articulated their thinking.

Strengths: Students find the app easy to use, they can use the "screen capture" function from other apps (such as "Geoboard" or "Protractor") and embed the pictures into their Explain Everything file, then annotate their work with arrows, captions and other 'bits' of information.  Students can write directly onto the screen or use the keyboard option (this is important when you are working with students who lack fine motor control.  When students can only write directly onto the screen, they end up using up the screen space very quickly, making it difficult to organize their work).  Students can audio record their thinking at the end of the working time or while they work at solving the problem so that I can "listen in" to their thinking at my convenience.  When it comes time to consolidate, there is solid documentation of what has been tried so that others can benefit from the problem-solving that has occurred. 

Limitations: We haven't figured out how to edit the audio so that long pauses and unnecessary dialogue can be deleted.  It would be helpful to have access to a shape creator and other math components on screen so that students could be very accurate without importing from other apps.  

Students are able to share their work with me via Google drive as an MP4 file.