Using Twitter to Post Assignments for Students-an Updated Version with Another Video

      Twitter is a very useful application that is being used more and more in the classroom.  To show this I have decided to create a short tutorial explaining how to use twitter to post assignments, reminders, links, and even photos.

      I really thought that this would be something that I could do quickly but I had trouble getting it all together.  I decided to use my chromebook to record a screencast through Hangouts On Air.  I have a desktop computer but it is just far to ancient to try to do a screencast on.  We would be waiting for years!  The first time I tried on the chromebook, the microphone was not on.  Talk about annoyed!!  The next time, the sound was all cracked up.  So, I went in for a third try and the sound quality was still bad.

However, here is the link.  The visual is good, but the audio is not what it used to be.  I think that after Hangouts made some changes, their audio quality went downhill because I have done this before and it came out well.

Using Twitter in the Classroom

      Throughout this class I have been turning into a perfectionist.  I could not leave this video as my final piece.  It's like there is a little voice behind me saying that I can fix it.  Ian.....is that you?  SO after the many attempts that I made using the chromebook, I decided to weigh my options with some other machines.  This is what happened there:

• I have a Dell laptop, so I thought about using that.  I went to turn it on, and it would not load up.
• I have my very ancient desktop computer, but no microphone, and it seriously takes ten minutes to load one page, so that was not in the cards.
• This left me with my IPAD.  So I was left to research some ideas on how to screencast on my IPAD.

      After a lot of searching, and a lot of ignoring of people in my house (sorry), I came across a lot of different apps.  I started to download quite a few of them.  I downloaded Educreations and Doceri, but these were just different whiteboard apps that did not give me the option to enhance with a webpage.  I was getting very frustrated.  I finally found an app that did everything I needed it to do.  It was an interactive whiteboard that allowed me to import a webpage.  It was called Explain Everything.  However, t cost $2.99.  I decided to sleep on it and would deal with it in the morning.

      As I woke up, I realized I was not happy with my video and I needed to fix something.  I decided to change it and downloaded Explain Everything.  It went well and was very easy to use.  However it took a long time to upload to youtube and process.  I was excited that my voice did not sound crackled.  But then, I saw the video and there was no picture for half of it.  I was going crazy!  Someone has it out for me!!

Using Twitter in the Classroom through Explain Everything

I then read Ian's email and decided to change mt chromebook to developer mode to see if that helped my video.  It still was cracked.  So, in conclusion, if you take me two videos and piece them together, you will get one great video!!  I think next time, I will make a video explaining Explain Everything and hope it works, but I need to acclimate myself to it first.  Sometimes technology just does not go your way!!