Saturday, January 14, 2012

ShowMe and Educreations... Two Apps for the iPad

For Christmas this year my wife gave me an iPad. Getting into the tablet technology has been an interest of mine for some time and now I get the opportunity to explore. One of the first things I wanted to explore was the idea of creating learning objects for use with students using an iPad. I am pleased to say I have found two apps that I am testing right now.

The first one is called ShowMe. I am including a snapshot of the user interface to show what it looks like. Basically you can add an image to a single page, write on that page and add audio as you record. After recording is completed you have the option of either sharing the video publicly or privately. As well the video can be viewed on either a computer or an iPad (but I could not view it on my iPhone). All this from an iPad app. Very cool indeed!

The second app that I have been testing is Educreations. It has many of the same features as the ShowMe app. It allows the adding of images to a page, writing on the screen and the adding of audio as recording is taking place. It too allows the publishing to occur either publicly or privately. The screenshot for that is included in this post too.

However, Educreations will allow the addition of multiple pages whereas the ShowMe app only allows the writing on a single page. The addition of more pages will be useful when, for example, I am creating a detailed work solution to a math problem. The downside is that the videos created with the Educreations app will not play on an iPad at this time.

My plan is to keep testing and using both. My goal is to use my iPad to record learning objects that correspond to questions from sample final exams. I will update the blog as soon as I get a meaningful amount of content online. This iPad is getting to be more than a nice Christmas present... it's becoming a development tool.

4 comments:

Jeff Simon said...

I'm a math teacher using iPads in my classroom. Did you ever come to a conclusion about which of these apps you preferred overall?

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering the same thing. I have been using educreations for four months and I love it...but I'm wondering about showme for my students to use.

Unknown said...

Also Explain Everything does a similar task although that is a paid app - it has a little more sophistication though. Screenchomp is another simple one that younger students seem to work well with. I guess they all do the same thing and it just comes down to personal preference. I have not used Showme and I would be interested if it is more user friendly.

Unknown said...

For interactive whiteboards, give AniMoby a try. It has a variety of clipart files for teachers to use when making lessons - I think it works better than the others.

Here is the link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/animoby/id626158968?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2