Talking maps? Yup, and on your blog, in 3 easy steps

It's no secret that I really enjoy using technology, especially in the classroom, and I like to find new ways to use new apps to do new things. British Literature students have an assignment to prove that they understand where the difference-makers of the first millennium (a.d.) came from, and to do that, they'll be using 3 apps to make a 60-90 second annotated video map. Here's how:

Maps (built-in)

1. Screenshot your map. Using the Maps app, take a screenshot of the area you're going to be annotating. To do this, get the map in the correct position, and press the Home and Power buttons at the same time.
   
   
   
   By the way, make sure you set the map to the Satellite view. To do that, press the little page corner thing at the bottom right of the screen and select the correct view. I will not give points for doing this as the already-labeled Standard view, so change it!
   
   
   
   

2. 

   Skitch

   Edit the map with Skitch. There's a couple of nice drawing programs I've used since I had my iPad, but the two things I like about Skitch that sets it apart from the others is 1) you can send Skitches drawings to Evernote so easily, and 2) you can put an image* down as a "layer" beneath the drawing and easily write on top of it. Better yet, if you make a mistake or need to adjust something, you can easily clear everything except your original image off the program. Excellent.
   
   So about that map of Britain from the last step: When you screenshot it, it went into your iPad's Photo library. On Skitch, then, open that picture and add in the important "written" information for this assignment, like where the Celts or Vikings were from, or where Normandy is, or which part of Great Britain has London. Once you're finished, hit the little Send button (  )and then send it back to your photos.
   
   
   
   You should now have two copies of that map: the original blank one and the newly annotated one. Boom.
   
   

3. 

   ShowMe

   Annotate it with ShowMe.  Here's the fun part: with ShowMe, you can create "screencasts", or recordings of what you're drawing on the screen (and what you're saying outloud while you do it). I've shown how to use this program (and a similar, yet inferior, one called ScreenChomp before), and I've assigned students to show how Shakespearean sonnets "work" using ShowMe. Heck, I've even posted an excellent (albeit kimchi-scented) example using ShowMe.
   
   So, of course, we'll be doing it again for this assignment, with the twist being that you'll be screencasting your already-annotated Skitch-made screenshots, adding voiceover and movement. Download the ShowMe app, sign in (with is fine), and create a new project. On opening, you'll have a blank white canvas. Tapping on the little picture button at the top ( ) will allow you to select the background image you want ( yellow arrow ):
   
   
   
   When you're ready to start talking, press the little red circle (  ) at the top of the screen ( red arrow ), and ShowMe will record whatever you draw and whatever say out loud. Once you're finished you can simply hit the pause button, and ShowMe will upload it.
   
   

4. 

   Blogsy

   BONUS STEP: EMBED INTO YOUR BLOG WITH BLOGSY. Say whaaaat? Yes, you can! My favorite little program will allow you easily embed your presentation into the post. Find your ShowMe presentation on their website (you'll probably have to log in again) and click the little Embed link icon (  ). This will give you the code necessary to post to your blog. I'd suggest you adjust the width of the size to 400px by 300px, but that's just me, someone who will be grading you (HINT HINT).
   
   
   
   Take this code to Blogsy and paste it into the HTML mode (which you get to by clicking the  button on the bottom right of the main page). Once you've pasted it, toggle back to the Formatting mode (by clicking the ), upload the post, and wallah!--Take a look at your work! With any luck, your blog should have your annotated video screenshot embedded into it!
   

So that's all! YES, it's a lot of steps, but truly, the hardest part should be learning the information you're going to explain, and you were going to do that, anyways! Best of luck to students in doing this process, and like always, email me if you have any issues in getting it uploaded.

*And, by extension, anything you can screenshot: photos, a web page, a map, a game, whatever.

How do you explain sonnets to a 5-year-old? ANYANG!

I know I keep talking to my British Lit students about writing their sonnets and all kinds of different things regarding poetry, but it's 1) awesome to study, and 2) hard enough I want to KEEP talking to you about it and giving you pointers. Recently, you guys had an assignment to make those Show Me or Screen Chomp videos explaining how sonnets work. [I HATE SCREEN CHOMP NOW. JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.] Everyone did pretty good jobs on them, but the most outstanding one, in my opinion, came from little Anyang Esther. She explained masculine/feminine rhyme, rhyme schemes, and iambic pentameter so well that I thought you should all take a peek at her awesomeness. Look:



Thanks for rocking out, Esther! 5 points EC to you!

Brit Lit Sunday To-Do: 1) Medieval projects & 2) ShowMe Sonnets

Well, I warned ya.

For British Lit students, you have two pretty big assignments due early this next week—your aforementioned Medieval projects and the assignment where you use Show Me Whiteboard or Screen Chomp to explain my lecture on Sonnets (featured below):

Sonnets on Prezi

The Medieval projects are due on Sunday, as I said earlier. Please email them to Sean, Beverly, and myself so we can start to process and put them together.

As for the ShowMe projects, I've decided to excercise some mercy and extend the deadline until Monday (for the A-Day class) and Tuesday (for the B-Day class). Not a huge extension, but I'm willing to give it to ya because I know these will look amazing on the blogs!

Have a busy weekend!

HINT: Students ought to check out a couple of cool iPad screencasting apps!

So, I've been looking for some cool new iPad apps lately, and I stumbled across two (free!) that I think are pretty interesting: Show Me Whiteboard and Screen Chomp. Both of these apps are designed for screencasting, which is essentially make a video of something actually happening on your iPad and putting it online to share. With each app, you can click record, draw on the screen, add pictures, and even talk out loud (to explain what you're doing), and then upload that to the internet and post it on your blog or web site or whatever. This would be a pretty cool technology to have if you were going to show your teacher how to do something, like making diagrams, explaining maps, or, I don't know, how about explaining poetry (?).

Both of these apps work about the same way, but I think that Screen Chomp is, frankly, a little more aimed for elementary school students. Show Me has a bit more options and comes across as a little bit more "grown up," so I'm going to show you really quick how to use it.

To the right is what the main app screen for Show Me looks like. To use it, you click the little record button, which is the 2nd to the bottom. (It would be where the F is, but it will look like instead of .) Then... you just start drawing. And talking. And it gets it all down. When you're finished, you click the  F button again (which should be in a shape), and it will stop.

A rundown of the buttons:

A: The pen. For drawing (obviously). You can click on any color and then the pen, and it will draw in that color.
B: The eraser. Clicking on that and "drawing" will erase individual sections of the drawing.
C: Full eraser. Clicking on that will erase the entire screen.
D: Undo.
E: Change the background from all-white (default) to any picture in your photo library.
F: The aforementioned Record/Play/Stop recording button.
G: Export. Once you create an account, you can get the embed code and put your video into your blog!

To prove how easy it is, check this out:



From my experimentation, Screen Chomp works essentially the same way. Another reason I don't like it as much, though, is it only gives you, like, 3 colors for drawing. And again, just seems waaay more childish. My opinion, though.

So, try it out Show Me a few times—who knows, you might need it soon! (HINT HINT)