How to: let kids explain their thinking & SHARE IT

This tutorial features the Explain Everything and Seesaw apps.

RECORD THINKING PROCESSES WITH EXPLAIN EVERYTHING

Present your students with a word problem, and let them try to solve it, explaining their process as they go. Being "on camera" increases student focus on the details of their explanation and slows them down, while the ability to watch back any proposed solution can help solidify problem solving processes.

Students get started by opening the Explain Everything app, and clicking the plus sign in the top left corner of the screen to create a new project.
They can choose a color layout that they like just by tapping on it.

That brings them to the creation stage! This is basically a blank canvas for them to show their work, and record themselves while doing it. It's built for kids: the toolbar tools are simplistic, and they can even add a document shared with them or image in the background.
Students can write using their finger or a stylus on the blank canvas, changing ink colors if they'd like. If they make a mistake, they can click the eraser to fix it.
The red record button at the top of the screen captures any action that happens on the canvas, along with audio picked up by the microphone. Students can pause their recording whenever they like, and simply press the red button again to finish.

LET STUDENTS SHARE THEIR RECORDINGS in DRIVE or on Seesaw

This step assumes that the teacher is either logged into Drive on the iPad, or that they have established a shared student work folder within Drive.

A catalog of student explanations can be a great resource for struggling students, or wonderful evidence of student understanding (or lack thereof).

In this example, a student has solved a simple multiplication problem and is going to share their 9 second video to a student work folder I have created in Google Drive.

After students have finished recording their solution to a problem, the can click the export button (highlighted at right).

The two options of most use here are:
- Video to Camera Roll: this option is best for sharing to Seesaw.
- More: Explain Everything has direct integration with Google Drive, allowing you to open from and share directly to Google Drive.

SHARE TO DRIVE

Students should tap More after tapping the export button.
On the next screen, students should select to export their project as a Video (highlighted at top) and tap the GDrive icon (highlighted right).

Students can tap the folder where their recording should go (I've created a folder in My Drive called *Student Explanations. Notice the *, which keeps this folder at the top of my list, and the first thing the students see.
Then, they'll just tap Export in the upper right hand corner.

Finally, Explain Everything will ask the students to name their movie. If you'd like, you can work out a naming standard with the kids ahead time. For my purposes, I just used first name and then the process I was showing. You can allow them to be as creative as you like. Just know that you may come across a Alex's super amazing panda jalopy hairbrush division problem.
After they are satisfied with their movie name, they can tap the big blue OK button and they're done!

POST TO SEESAW

If you and your students are Seesawsers (trademark), they can post their explanations right to the class feed on Seesaw.

After clicking the export button in Explain Everything, tap Video to Camera Roll.
Open the Seesaw app, and click the green plus sign in the upper right hand corner, and tap Camera Roll.
The student should find the video they recorded and tap it.

After tapping the video they want to share, they'll see a preview of it. Tapping the green check-mark confirms their selection.
Students will tap the green check-mark a couple more times when selecting a student to share as, and a folder to share the video to (if required).
Finally, Seesaw will alert you that the item was uploaded!

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