In Awe of Appsmashing

Have you ever heard of Appsmashing? If you haven’t, be prepared to have your mind blown.

Last week, the Edcite team gave you tips for adapting your curriculum during the summer. While you have some extra time, here’s another trick you should try with the edtech tools you currently use — Appsmashing.

I first learned about Appsmashing from Joe Dale at the #ICTedu conference in Thurles, Ireland. According to Dale, Appsmashing is the process of taking multiple apps and using them in combination to create an even greater product than any individual product could produce on its own. At the core, Appsmashing is very intuitive. If I like a voiceover app that only allows me to record thirty seconds at a time, but have an app that can combine videos from my library, I can smash both techniques together to adapt my voiceover to be the length I desire! Appsmashing removes limits that come with using apps in isolation.

With the Appsmashing idea in mind, I used the following three apps to enrich my resources on Edcite:

Yakit Kids: This free app allows you to animate any picture and record your voice.

Tellagami: This free app allows you to create an avatar in front of any background picture and record your voice.

YouTube Capture: This free app allows you to combine different video clips, trim the beginning and end of specific clips, add background music, and save to your phone or upload straight to YouTube.

Once you create your video, you can follow the directions below to get your videos uploaded into your Edcite assignment.

1. Upload videos onto YouTube.

Once you have your videos created on YouTube Capture you can upload them onto YouTube. You can either do this directly from the YouTube Capture app or by saving the video to your camera roll and then going directly to YouTube.com to upload the video into your video library. I like to post my videos as unlisted; although they are not private, they are unsearchable so only people accessing it from Edcite or those with the URL will be able to see it.

2. Add videos into the different questions.
You can post your video from YouTube to Edcite with these 7 easy steps!

Step 1: It is much better to link a video from YouTube instead of uploading a video from your computer. From the YouTube home page, click on the “share” button (green circle). The
n click on “embed” (red box). From the embed tool you see the whole HTML video URL.
Pull out the part that starts with //www. and looks like a link.

Step 2: On Edcite, click on the video
editor from the editor toolbar (green box).

Step 3: From the video upload page, select “Add Video URL” to upload your YouTube videos into the library. Be sure to fill in any tags you want associated with this video—this is also important for finding your videos in the library. For example, I tagged my videos as Mussels Meal Q1, Mussels Meal Q2, etc., etc. When it asks for the image URL towards the bottom, insert the link from your YouTube video. Add http: to the front of the URL.

Step 4: Once you have copied and pasted the link into the Image URL box, select “Add to Video” at the very bottom and your video will be added to your video library. Go ahead and exit out of the video upload box and search your video library for the tag you attached to your new video. Add your video once it appears by clicking the select button. Be sure to save each question after you add the videos in order to update the questions library and the assignment you are creating.

Appsmashing removes the limits of each indiviual education app to help you maximize your pedagogy. This summer, take the time to try out different combinations and see what is best for you! Luckily, Edcite is a flexible platform that allows you to “Appsmash” with many different tools in your edtech toolbox.  Do you have any favorite ways to Appsmash? Share with us on Twitter via @edciteteam or on our facebook page!

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Julia Sweeney, although currently working for Edcite in Ireland, is originally from Roseville, CA and went to University of the Pacific. She joined the Teach For America Delta Corps in 2011, where she taught middle school English and American History. She has a passion for education and exploring the vast potential technology offers  education systems, worldwide.

Note to any Irish Teachers: Reach out if you’d like to sit down and go through the site, give any feedback, or brainstorm ways you can use Edcite in your class! You can reach her via email at julia@edcite.com or on Twitter  @juliasween.