The Backstory
Inspired by Rob Ackerman's narrated slides showing a glimpse into his school, "10 Pics in 10 Minutes (or maybe 11)," I figured I could probably do that for Wolcott Elementary School. So, I got to work.
First thing was to figure out how to produce this simple video. Of course, I wanted to do this for free. I decided that whatever production process I used had to be simple and on my iPad (had to be iPad in order to be simple to create whenever and wherever). I tried to narrate a slide show in Keynote, Google Slides, and Haiku Deck with no luck (If those apps allow narrating, it was too hard for me to find). Then, I took a look at Show Me and Educreations. Both were already on my iPad and allowed me to do exactly what I wanted. Both were easy to use, but need expensive subscriptions in order to export. Well, exporting is the whole point. Being cheap, I did not want to pay either $50 or $100 for the subscriptions. I took a look at what else was out there.
I found Explain Everything after a brief search. For only $2.99 it does what the others do and includes all sorts of export options. Just what I was looking for. After only a few minutes playing with Explain Everything, I was sure that I would be able to make a short, narrated video like Rob's.
So, the next day, I wandered the building (as I often do) taking pictures on the iPad Mini I carry. Throughout the day, I would return to my office for a short time to work on the video. First, I made a new album on the ipad of pics that I might want to use. Then, I narrowed it down. I eliminated pics I took in 5th and 6th grade because they were lousy shots. I eliminated a few others that were blurry or just not-so-good. Finally, I was down to a few good photos.
I kept these seven pics in the order I took them and began to write down a little about each. Once I wrote out the rest of my scripts (about ten minutes to do this part), I began to record the audio for each pic. I got most in one take.
Once I was satisfied, I exported the finished video to the camera role of my iPad. Since I use Wolcott Elementary School's Facebook page to communicate with parents, I uploaded the file directly there. I also uploaded the video to YouTube for safekeeping.
And, voilá!