Awardee: Jodi Schwartz
Semester of Award: Spring 2021
Materials Awarded: iPad and Pencil.
Project Description:
The communication of complex processes and structures in biology and biochemistry requires that the instructor present complex illustrations/diagrams/process flows that they then elaborate on, contextualize, and interpret for the students. The iPad/pencil can be used with Explain Everything to show slides on a screen while the instructor annotates that slide directly to highlight important details, write key points, or draw on top of the illustration.
Explain Everything worked very well as the platform that integrated the powerpoint slides with the annotation tools. It allowed me to upload a powerpoint presentation, and then use a tablet and fine point electronic pencil to annotate/illustrate, and save it as a new presentation for my students to use later. It also allows the instructor to create new pages spontaneously so they can integrate ideas that come up spontaneously. And it allows the instructor to solicit ideas from students and incorporate those in real time, directly on top of the images shown in the powerpoint slide. This ability to show slides and annotate them directly is such a vast improvement over how I had been teaching previously (showing slides on a screen but then trying to recreate them on a whiteboard so that I can annotate them).
The ability to annotate and draw on top of powerpoint slides and other static illustrations has transformed my teaching by allowing me to communicate ideas in a much more integrated and cohesive manner and to be able to draw in real time as students provide input during the lecture.