30hands: Digital Storytelling & Presentations

30hands can be used to create narrated slide show presentations about any topic. By tapping the camera icon, users can create slides by taking pictures, drawing pictures, or importing images from their camera roll or Dropbox. Once a slide is created, users can narrate it and re-record narration as needed. As a presentation is created, users have the options to modify the slide order and preview their presentation. Once completed, presentations can be published, saved to the camera roll, or saved to 30hands. If users choose to save to the camera roll, their options for sharing are maximized, and include email, posting to YouTube, or saving to iCloud, among other options.

Instructional Ideas

1. 30hands can be used for students to demonstrate reading comprehension. To do so, students could be instructed to read a text and create a presentation that represents their understanding. As an example, Science teachers can instruct students to read about a scientific principle and then to find images of that principle in society. Following, students could then import their images into presentation slides and provide narration to explain the scientific principle. Finally, students could submit their presentations via email to the teacher or play it for the class.
2. Teachers can use 30hands to create narrated slide shows about any topic. By saving the presentation and emailing it to themselves, teachers will be able to post the slide show to their class website as a .mov file for students to access.
3. Math teachers can have students use 30hands to explain the solution to a multi-step problem. For example, teachers would first assign students—either individually or in small groups—a complex problem to solve. Next, students would be instructed to create a narrated slide for each step of the problem using 30hands’ draw feature so they can write in the individual steps of the problem on each slide.
4. Conceptual maps or graphic organizers can be narrated using 30hands. For example, History teachers can assign students a historical topic or person to research. As they research, students would be instructed to identify a certain amount of events in relation to the researched person’s life, in addition to locating visual depictions of the events. Finally, students would create slides for each event that contain both graphical and narrated information related to the event.
5. As an alternative to traditional paper-and-pencil visual aids for research projects, teachers can have students create presentations using 30hands.
6. English teachers can have students create narrated storyboards with 30hands. After reading a story, students could be instructed to find images that represent the happenings in the story and, using the narration feature in 30hands, explain what the image represents as related to the story and its significance.
7. Foreign Language teachers can instruct students to use 30hands to create a presentation on a given topic for which they are to include slide narration spoken in the language that they are learning.
8. Previews that “booktalk” a novel can be created using this app. After reading a book in literature circles, students can be grouped together and be assigned to create a preview for the book they read. The trailer will preview the book by introducing its plot, setting, and conflict. However, ensure that students do not give away too much of the book and spoil it for future readers. Once created, the preview can be posted to the class’s online reading blog and/or website. Students can present these previews to the rest of the class, other classes (in future semesters), and the school (other English classes). These previews could also be used by the librarians to involve students in new books.
9. Students can use this app to showcase a reading strategy they use that helps them comprehend a text. Some strategies that could be presented include text annotations, highlighting, character mapping, or double-entry journals. In the presentation, students can produce slides that offer an overview of the strategy, examples of when they used the strategy, examples of the strategy in use, and an explanation of how the strategy helped them deeply comprehend a text.

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