Classic Explain Everything

Explain Everything is a whiteboard app that can practically do everything, which in turn allows you and your students to explain it all. Read on to find out more!

App Overview: 4/5 Apples

Explain Everything is a whiteboard app, meaning that it will give you a blank surface to work on, much like a whiteboard provides in a classroom. From there though the options are plentiful. Let's start with the whiteboard capabilities.

Main Subjects: All! You could definitely use this in math for students to work through and show their work by quickly projecting it using Apple TV. You could use it in all subjects by having students make videos explaining a particular concept (hence the name). You can use it in science to label things, and in social studies to give presentations. This is one of the most versatile apps on the market, and will probably become one of your staple apps in the classroom.

Ease of Use for Teacher: 4/5 Apples: If you are using Explain Everything as a teaching tool, it's many functions offers you countless ways to show your students what they need to know. All of those options do make it a little bit complicated to learn in the beginning (thus minus one apple), but one you cycle through the choices you should quickly recognize many features that teachers are familiar with. Some of these are the basics such as the writing pen, the text box option, and adding shapes. What is neat about this app is that each of those has several modifications to help you better convey your content to the students. Need fine detail, use a small pen head. Need sentence starters, use a large pen head. Want it to look stylish, choose from over 50 fonts. Want to change the color of your arrows and shapes, no problem! Besides these tools, there are also several other teacher friendly features such as a laser pointer to highlight what you are talking about (it can even be modified to be a Star Wars light saber!), a page zoom button so you never run out of space, and a recording button so you could even teach your lesson before hand and flip the classroom. Each of these tools is something we have seen before, but to have them all together is what makes this app so unique and powerful. Therefore we highly recommend that every teacher get Explain Everything and use it to change your classroom.

Ease of Use for Students: 3/5 Apples: Explain Everything is built with so many features that can be used in the classroom, which is great. However, all of those options mean that the user, in this case your students, could feel overwhelmed. With this in mind, we would highly recommend this app for upper grades, but would suggest a similar but easier to use whiteboard app such as Educreations for Primary. If you are feeling ambitious, you could use the app with primary students, but we would recommend introducing only one or two features at a time and then practicing it several times before moving on to the next feature.

Cost: 3.5/5 Apples: While it was originally free, Explain Everything now costs $7.99. This can actually be halved if you do a volume purchase of over 20 for your classroom iPads thanks to Apple's wonderful VPP discount. For the features you get with Explain Everything, and its versatility, it is still worth the price. You can use it as everyday whiteboards, record students for depth of knowledge, record yourself to flip the classroom, and to top it all off Explain Everything gives you great flexibility when it comes to exporting and sharing your final product.

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