The Burlington Public Schools Edtech Team recently announced the third App Explorer Challenge. This time around, the challenge is to use the iPad app 30Hands which is a great tool for teachers and students to use to create narrated slideshows. Teachers are being asked to use the app to create a presentation based on their curriculum and grade level. The full list of requirements for the challenge can be found here.

Top 10 reasons why you should give 30Hands a try

1. 30Hands is easy to learn and simple to use
2. The app can be integrated into any content area and grade level
3. It is an excellent choice if you wish to flip a lesson
4. It is a perfect choice to offer students for digital storytelling
5. Students will be challenged to think creatively and at higher levels
6. Presentations can be created from images, photos, and drawings
7. Inserting, editing, and rearranging slides is a breeze
8. Audio and slides are connected which makes it ideal for student collaboration
9. Finished products can be saved as videos to your camera roll or saved to the 30Hands website for sharing
10. Students can create audio-enhanced image portfolios of their work (great for art classes!)

Creating a narrated slideshow

To create a narrated presentation with the 30Hands app, follow these simple steps:

1. Open the app. You will be prompted to either sign in or register, or you can tap “Skip this Step”

2. Tap the plus sign in the upper right corner to create a new presentation

3. Give your presentation a title and then tap “Add Slides”

4. Add slides to your presentation by either taking a picture, inserting photos from your camera roll, drawing a slide, or importing from Dropbox. Note: When selecting photos from your camera roll, you are limited to 10 photos at a time.

5. Once your slides have been loaded, you can arrange or delete them by tapping and then dragging to the desired location.

6. You can draw on each slide (you have the option of a 5 to 50 point pen width and a color palette) or you can add text, rectangles, circles, straight lines, or arrows.

7. To add audio to your slides, tap the record button. You can easily re-record the audio if you wish. One of the best features about 30Hands is that the recorded audio stays with each slide. This feature, combined with the ability to easily rearrange slides, makes 30Hands an ideal app for group presentations.

8. Once you are finished with the presentation, you can publish it to your camera roll or save it to the 30Hands website for sharing. Once the presentation is on the camera roll, it can be shared in a variety of ways including email, YouTube, Facebook, or Vimeo.

A Sample Presentation

In the example shown below, the 30Hands presentation was saved to the iPad camera roll. Next, it was imported into iMovie. An opening and closing was added along with background music to accompany the narration. The final product was published to YouTube.

Are You Ready To Take The 30Hands Challenge?

Help Desk students are eager to assist teachers who are interested in taking the 30Hands App Explorer Challenge. Students are available to meet with individual teachers or deliver classroom demonstrations of 30Hands periods 1, 3, 4 and 7. We welcome the opportunity to brainstorm with teachers, from all content areas, ideas on how 30Hands could be integrated into their curriculum.