I was on the hunt for some new apps for the boys' iPads for school, and came across a blog post singing the praises of "Explain Everything", a screen-casting, interactive whiteboard tool.
It seems to be quite a popular app with proponants of the flipped classroom model, however, my own interest stemmed primarily from the app's ability to act as an alternative to the traditional "chart paper" or bristol board, for a school project -- space and tangeable school supplies are at a premium here this year in my living room "classroom", so this app seemed to promise just the sort of solution I was looking for!
What's neat about it is that it can deal with multiple media items at once, on the same screen, and it can record everything (if you want it to) as you go. The resultant file can be exported in a variety of formats, including an easy upload to Youtube! (You can see my kid's very first attempt, recorded entirely by him this morning during our math class, here.)
Although it's had 730 000 downloads since its arrival in August 2011, this was the first I'd heard of Explain Everything. A little research revealed that the app is already widely used in education, especially in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, and is supported in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Polish. (According to the company, more translations are coming soon, too!)
The boys and I are looking forward to further discovering the capabilities of this little marvel!