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Read more to help students combine multiple apps in their projects and presentations:

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Greg Kulowiec begins his session by asking, "Why limit our students to one tool at one time?" With App Smashing, students can create content with a variety of apps and then publish it to the web - don't let content "die on your iPad."

The general concept between App Smashing is merging content from a variety of apps. Greg likes the word App Smash, but Lisa Johnson (@techchef4u) calls it App Synergy.

Toolkit for App Smashing - keep it simple!

The key to App Smashing is the camera roll - use apps that can save to camera roll or take screen captures and bring them in. What's important is that content be created, but it doesn't have to be digital. Imagine a student who creates in the real world, takes a picture or video, brings it into a product, and publishes to the web. The idea is creation and publishing without limits.

While the concept is to create content, get it into a central location, and make something with it, now, what can you do???? What can you prompt students to create.

App Smash Creations

Create a multimedia book about whatever concept, topic or idea is happening in class. Content comes from students exploring resources and creating something new.

Create a published web-book that can be exported to the web as a PDF. These completed products can be viewed in Issuu or Flipsnack. What about when students don't have access? Greg has a solution - create on paper, take pictures, and publish to the web!

"Making books if fun, but advanced video can be more fun," says Greg. Consider the potential of creating video content in a variety of formats, sending it to iMovie, and then publishing via YouTube or Vimeo. "Don't let people tell you that iPad can't be public-facing. Get the content off." Greg continues - even if it means putting all of it on a teacher YouTube or Vimeo channel. For a "meta experience of app smashing about app smashing," check out AppSmash Round 1.

The ThingLink Smash is one of Greg's favorites. With ThingLink, you can create interactive images with hotspots. If you create ThingLinks from a computer, you can link any content created on iPad and published to the web: YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, or even upload from the camera roll. While it is possible to upload video from the camera roll, it works better to have them linked from the cloud. For students, it's a great opportunity to share and showcase their work. It is important to remember that once you create a ThingLink on the iPad app, you can't go back and edit. However, the web version of ThingLink works in Safari on iPad as well as anything else with a web browser. One great solution from the crowd is to "Device Smash." Use iPhone panorama pictures to capture student creations across a wall and then use it as a ThingLink background.

RSA Animate Smashes are much like the professional videos created for the Sir Ken Robinson talk, but all created on iPad. Greg shows how Explain Everything can make this possible by creating the video, exporting to the camera roll, speeding it up in TiltShift Video, and then adding voice over via iMovie. Another option is to point an iPad towards a dry-erase board to create these videos in the real world that can be published via iPad. Greg showed this video about how to do create an RSA video on iPad.

Common Craft Videos are also possible as App Smashes. Create paper objects either on paper or with a drawing app, bring them into Explain Everything to move around the objects, save to camera roll, bring into iMovie and then publish!

Green Screen App Smashing is now possible thanks to the DoInk app. To do this, create video pieces in Explain Everything and/or Tellagami with a chroma-key background and then layer the videos in DoInk. The completed project can then be saved to camera roll and then brought into iMovie. In other words,

Collaborative App Smashes

The first key to App Smashing is AirDrop on the newer iPads. Students can easily push content to each other via AirDrop.

However, Drive or Dropbox could also be used to share content. Explain Everything and Book Creator are both great apps for collaboration because the actual projects can be imported and smashed together. The capacity now exists to co-create and co-publish all from iPads. Consider the potential for wide-scale collaboration!
>> View Greg's presentation materials
Want to learn more? Join us this coming year!

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Unleashing Creativity: Greg Kulowiec App Smashing - from Beth Holland - EdTechTeacher

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Greg Kulowiec begins his session by asking, "Why limit our students to one tool at one time?" With App Smashing, students can create content with a variety of apps and then publish it to the web - don't let content "die on your iPad."

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What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Communicator (YouTube video)?

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What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Communicator (YouTube video)?

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ISTE Standardr●S 6 Creative Communicators

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Uploaded by eLearningExpert on 2016-09-16.

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This article presents four basic strategies for simplifying your message.

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You're sitting in a conference room with all the big bosses. They're meeting to discuss the annual budget, and it's your job to pitch them your case for more money for your team.

The problem?

While you're quite confident everyone has a vague idea what your department does, you're not nearly as confident that everyone sees the importance of what you do or the way you do it.

Why? Well, what you do is pretty specific. Maybe so much so that your own friends don't quite get it.

But even if that's the case, you're going to have to learn how to get people on board with your work when you're looking for a cut of the company's budget, meeting with someone from a completely different field, or pitching an idea to a client.

Here's how to do that:

1. Get to Know Your Audience

Herein lies a true "trick of the trade:" Presenting information is never about the presenter-it's always about the audience.

So, rule number one? Get to know who they are: What's most important to them? What motivates them? What's their background? How do they prefer to communicate? What "language" do they tend to use?

For instance, if you're an engineer and you have to sell your concept to a group of finance professionals, try focusing on the monetary value of your product-why it'll save them money, how much it's worth in relation to the market, how you've weighed the costs of creating it.

By understanding who the person (or people) you're speaking to is, you're able to use their common knowledge or experience to decide how best to explain your idea.

Of course, this is easy when you have time to prepare for a meeting, but what if you're getting to know someone for the first time, like at a networking event?

Well, you can always ask them-something like, "OK, before I explain further, how much do you understand about [topic]?"

Then, after locking down your audience, you should do the following...

2. Choose the "One Thing" They Should Understand

One famous attempt to convey very complex information was a military briefing on Afghanistan in 2010. A general was shown a diagram explaining the American military strategy, but, as the New York Times says in an article about the incident, he found that it looked more "like a bowl of spaghetti."

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war," was the general's response to deciphering this information.

Like this funny real-life example suggests, if something is too complicated-a.k.a., trying to tackle too much at once-people are most likely to be confused by it, or worse, forget about it.

So, how do we even the odds to give you a better chance at making complex information memorable, and give your audience a better chance at processing said information?

It comes down to asking yourself these two questions:

If my audience will only remember one thing about my explanation, what is that "one thing?"

And, why should my audience care about this "one thing?"

This instantly creates focus for you to pick and choose the information you deliver (and how you deliver it), and makes it more likely your audience will get what you're trying to say.

3. Give Context and Use Examples

You've done your research, you know the players, and you know what makes them tick. You have tremendous clarity on what the "one thing" you want the team to remember is. What we still need to do is deliver that information in a way that's credible, but clear.

Simply saying, "I had this new idea and it will save us time and effort and I need X budget to get it done" might get people's attention, but there are still going to be (lots of) questions.

This is where context can be your best friend. The way you frame your information matters-the language, terms, and examples you choose to use will have a huge impact on what your audience remembers and understands.

So, paint a verbal picture. For example, rather than using the example above, you might say something like, "What's one thing no one likes doing? Time and expense reporting. We have 50 team members doing it, and it takes an average of one hour per week, per person. That's 50 hours we could be spending on more important projects. We can reduce that time wasted by 75% if we allocate some of our budget to hiring someone to do this for us."

By sharing that information, you make the problem tangible, and the solution appealing.

4. Watch Your Language

While using long, technical words might seem impressive, it rarely helps anyone understand what's being said.

So, opt for using simple, everyday language. Along those same lines, avoid any acronyms, jargon, or highly-niche phrases. When it's impossible to avoid, make sure to define any complex terms.

Breaking down complex ideas can be super challenging, especially if you're working with someone who has zero context about your work. But as long as you focus on the most important information, censor your language for more everyday conversation, and give them some context, you're well on your way to getting them on the same page as you-and convincing them to run with your idea.

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The Best Way to Break Down Complex Ideas

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You're sitting in a conference room with all the big bosses. They're meeting to discuss the annual budget, and it's your job to pitch them your case for more money for your team. The problem?

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The right visual format will help students effectively deliver their message to their audience. Teachers can view the following tech list for ideas:

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However visually appealing it may be, no digital format can make up for cluttered, hard to understand information. Students need to learn how to simplify and organize ideas in a straightforward, logical manner. The following article contains a great graphic which illustrates six ways to simplify information:

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Think back to the last time you had that "what the...?" moment when you were listening to someone explain concepts that were highly technical, detailed, or nuanced. You most likely experienced confusion, stupidity, or even anger. We have all been there. Conveying complex information in a clear, concise manner is a huge challenge for communicators of all stripes - scientists, technologists, business professionals, etc.

In order to make your complex information understandable for your audience, you first need to address some bad habits that get in the way.

When it comes to communicating, we tend to fall victim to two tendencies: We suffer from the "curse of knowledge," and we explain things in ways that work best for us, not our audience.

The curse of knowledge (a term I first encountered in Dan and Chip Heath's great book Made to Stick) simply means we know too much about our topic. Therefore, we make assumptions about our audience's knowledge and take shortcuts in our explanations or use jargon. Second, we tend to relay concepts to others in the manner we are most comfortable receiving information. This is to say that if we rely on data and detail to learn, we naturally tend to provide data and detail when we explain. These two communication habits serve to make it more difficult for our audiences to understand and learn from us.

Taking an audience-centric approach to your communication serves as the antidote to these two tendencies. Rather than start drafting your presentation, email, or meeting agenda by asking, "What do I want to say?" start by asking, "What does my audience need to hear?" In order to answer this, you must first think about what your audience knows and how they go about knowing. This reflection helps you to include information that you might have left out as well as to consider using different ways of explaining, such as stories, images, etc.

From your audience's perspective, you need to consider ways to make your complex material more accessible. Below are six tools you can use to help your audience understand your complex concepts: Diagram, deconstruct, compare, picture, backward map, chunk.

See how we illustrate the steps in archery by using these tools below.

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Hit the Mark: Make Complex Ideas Understandable

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Think back to the last time you had that "what the...?" moment when you were listening to someone explain concepts that were highly technical, detailed, or nuanced. You most likely experienced confusion, stupidity, or even anger. We have all been there.

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All of these tech tools can make creating fun and accessible, but  with accessibility comes responsibility around ownership and fair use. Videos like the following help explain copyright and digital usage basics to students. Includes lesson plans about reuse/remix of online content.

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Creativity, Copyright and Fair Use | Common Sense Education

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As creators, we need to be aware of copyright law and the appropriate ways to use original work responsibly with fair use. Being a creator means giving credit where credit is due, and getting credit for your original work!

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The last skill listed is perhaps the first to consider: who is your audience? What do they need to know? Once you have your audience in mind, you can choose the most appropriate means for presenting your message. Third graders and adults will likely be engaged by different presentation formats. To spark student discussion around the importance of audience, read:

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By Dave Reese
How can the consideration for an audience enhance performance-based learning?
As an emerging teacher I had a strong passion for project-based teaching and learning. I taught the life sciences and this strategy made a great deal of sense to me. My students were engaged and were mostly interested in the classroom content and using it to help develop their products. I did not realize my issue with this strategy until years later as a facilitator of professional learning. My problem was that whenever I assigned a project, my students were creating this product for me. I had neglected an important aspect of project-based learning; the audience.

As part of the teaching process I would provide the students with an overview of the task and products to be completed. I would share the rubrics with my students before beginning so they were aware of the expectations for themselves and their products. During this conversation the students knew what was to be done, how it would be assessed, and for who they were creating their products; me. Creating a meaningful audience would have provided a deeper learning experience that could have provided relevance for performance tasks, thus helping to create authentic tasks with a purposeful audience.
Audience as Part of the GRASP Template and Authentic Tasks
My current work involves the use of the Understanding by Design GRASP's template (Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, and Products) for the development of performance tasks. These tasks can become more authentic through the inclusion of a specific audience based upon real world connections. Defined STEM performance tasks become authentic based upon career relevance and the inclusion of a specific audience that students must consider when developing their products. Following are a few examples of Defined STEM performance tasks featuring diverse audiences.

Earth Scientist: Geothermal Energy (Grade 9)
Defined STEM Energy Task
Baseball Bat Analyst (Grade 7)
Defined STEM Baseball Bat Task
Assembly Lines (Grades 3-5)
Defined STEM Assembly Line Task
Through consideration for the audience, students are required to look at the information, content, and concepts through an alternate lens (that of their audience). Students will need to apply their knowledge of the topic to create products specific to the needs of their audience. Knowledge is much more than just reciting information. Cabrera and Colosi (2012) defined knowledge as, "actionable information used to solve a problem, navigate a situation, or figure something out. It is the way we use information and how we activate it." It is the last part of this definition that connects with the audience. Students need to activate their knowledge to provide products for their audience. Doing this extends their understanding and allows them to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding.
Practices and Capacities Addressed Through an Audience
Reviewing a graphic from the National Science Teachers Association connecting practices and capacities across sets of academic standards including Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics and English Language Arts and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) find processes enhanced through the development of an audience. Following are some of practices and capacities strengthened through the use of an audience. These are by no means the only connections that can be made.

Available at: http://nstahosted.org/pdfs/ngss/PracticesVennDiagram.pdf

The CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practices expect students to:
M2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively M3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
The NGSS Scientific and Engineering Practices expect students to:
S4: Analyzing and interpreting data S6: Constructing explanations and designing solutions S7: Engaging in argument from evidence S8: Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
The CCSS Capacities expect students to:
E3: They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline. E5: They value evidence. E7: They come to understand other perspectives and cultures.
The link to the diagram above shares many relationships across the subject areas, all which require students to apply their knowledge and skills (Cheuk, 2013). Through authentic tasks these practices and capacities have more relevance, as consideration must be given for the specific audience and the purpose intended.
Audience and Entrepreneurship
This idea brings forth connections with entrepreneurship, as well as creativity and innovation, two attributes commonly referred to as critical 21st century skills. As part of this process entrepreneurs must determine their audience and quite frequently their specific target audience. Any task involving an audience requires the person conducting the task to determine the audience and critical attributes of that audience. Who are they? What are their wants and needs? How can I engage them? As students design and build products such as prototypes, models, brochures, and multimedia presentations, the creative process includes strong considerations for the wants and needs of the target audience.

Entrepreneurs have the daunting task of building a product or service from scratch that in some way solves a problem that exists in our society. Communicating the problem and the solution to varied audiences will be an important step in the success of the endeavor. This communication requires the sharing of information to help inform decision-making. It also often involves argumentation and persuasion to convince the audience of the value of a product or service.

Entrepreneurs are first and foremost problem solvers. Johnjoe Farragher is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Defined Learning and an entrepreneur who is constantly considering his target audience. During a conversation about Defined Learning work he shared the following,

"One critical piece of the communication process for entrepreneurs is the audience who is receiving the message. I find these five questions help me make sure my message is on point and is specifically crafted to the audience.

1. Who is in the audience and what types of decision makers are they?

2. Will they be able to see the problem that I'm solving and the need to produce a solution?

3. What are their needs in listening to this communication?

4. How will they process the information I'm giving them?

5. What is the Ask? What do I want them to do after the presentation?"

These questions can help students determine the best way to apply content and skills to meet the need of a particular audience. The following task refers to the audience as a focus group. Upon first glance this focus group is anything but focused. This is done intentionally to help the educator consider a wide range of people who may be the target audience for a backpack. The task may be edited to create a target audience. In many instances teachers will create multiple versions of this task to address multiple target audiences. This strategy allows students to consider the common design process and make specific decisions related to all aspects of the backpack based upon the specified audience. What audience would you select for your students? Or would you let them select their own target audience?

Backpack Designer (Grade 7)
Defined STEM Backpack Task
During a professional learning experience a middle school, a social studies teacher shared his idea for using this task in his classroom. He taught an introduction to eight historical, world cultures during his class. He suggested that during the year his class would build eight backpacks, one for each culture. To do this he would ask the students to consider three questions for each culture:

What materials are available to build the backpack?

What types of things would people from this culture put in their backpack? and

Where are they going to go with their backpack on their back?

These are great questions and he explained that the answers were critical aspects of his units. Creating backpacks for the people of each culture would provide something tangible for the students and would help them understand the geography, society and culture of this group. It would extend the students' thinking beyond what they are familiar with and how things are done in their "world."
Considering the Value of a Global Audience
Creativity, entrepreneurship, and global competence are the new basic skills that will bring the "coming prosperity" to the world (Auerswald, 2012).

Many authentic tasks can be created for a local, national, and/or global audience. Our students need to create mental relationships for their existence in a global, interconnected world. Topic and audience can help to create the situation and require students to utilize practices and capacities, adapting as necessary for a global audience and/or an audience somewhere other than where they are familiar.

JT Rehill is the Managing Director of LEAD Turkey, a professional training and coaching organization in Istanbul, Turkey. His work takes him to many different countries including the United States. I asked him to consider the questions he asks about his audience when preparing a written, oral, or formal presentation. His answer follows and he shared that he does this so frequently that it has been a while since he truly considered specific questions. "His wants and needs were fairly subconscious as he prepared products for each specific audience.

1. What's in it for them? (In other words, what should they walk away with? This is what I base my purpose on and figure out my key messages/conclusion.)

2. Why should they listen to me? Presenting helps me know where to begin and to build a personal connection - and some credibility - from the start.)

3. What do I want them to question? (This stems from the root of "What might they already know?," but if I can get them to think critically about a topic then I'm fulfilling my purpose.)

4. How can I make it stick?(What will reinforce the intended messages throughout? In a presentation this might mean more meaningful stories, reflective questions, or dramatic pauses. In a workshop it relates to planned activities or discussion strategies, depending on the group. In writing, this has to do with formatting and writing style, but largely follows the same narrative style as presenting)."

Regardless if your audience is local, national, or international, an authentic experience must consider these questions. Additionally, as someone who presents and creates products for a global audience he was asked how "culture" impacts the products he develops.

"Culture is an essential element in considering any audience - and it's far bigger than one's nationality or identification with any demographic sub-group - which means understanding core beliefs, familial and societal rituals, taboos, language, behavioral norms, sense of humor, etc. You have to consider what you know about commonalities within an audience so you can make the necessary personal connection."

Yong Zhao, the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education at the University of Oregon, provides critical insight to this point:

"With over seven billion people living different economic, social, and cultural settings, some of which do not necessarily share the same values or interests, we must be concerned about how to get along and what we can equip our children with to make the world they will occupy peaceful and sustainable. They have to be educated as citizens of the world beyond citizens of a nation. A global perspective and genuine concern about the well being of others are essential for citizens in the age of globalization." (Asia Society, 2008; Zhao, 2009)

In many instances authentic tasks can be developed and utilized that are similar, addressing the same audience, yet with different roles. They can be beneficial in addressing an issue from alternate points of view requiring the use of practices and capacities across the standards areas. The audience must be informed and persuaded based upon the claims made and evidence provided. This evidence must be communicated and presented to the audience in a way in which the audience will understand and benefit. The two tasks below are an example of this idea based upon Southeast Asia. Before students can address the issues they must learn about the location and the culture of the people involved.

The following examples promote the idea of a global audience:

Hydroelectric Engineer: The Xayaburi Dam Project and the People of Laos
Hydroelectic Engineer Task
In this example, the products are similar and intended for the same audience. The content knowledge is somewhat different based upon the role assigned. The practices and capacities utilized by the students in their respective roles remain the same. Each role must understand the audience and communicate the message effectively to be successful. In this example the content is similar but the perspective is different and the audience must understand the perspective and why it matters.

Educators may use these authentic tasks independently or they may use both in the same classroom with groups of students involved and perhaps having the debate with students assigned to be the audience. These students will review the products and listen to the debate making a final decision. Often, the students serving as the audience will have a deeper learning experience as they review and question both sides and their roles.
Conclusion
To be authentic, students need an audience. Determining the audience is an ongoing part of task development through the GRASP template. As part of this process the educator will want to consider many variables:

How is the audience connected with the critical content and skills?

How is the audience related to the problem, issue, process under consideration for the task?

What resources are available to help students learn about the task and the audience under consideration?

What is the goal for this audience when considering the role the student(s) will be assuming?

What will the student(s) be providing the audience?

I am reminded of a comment made to me by an undergraduate ecology course professor when I indicated my concern about teaching the content that I was learning in his class. He suggested that through teaching it a few times and having to determine how best my students would learn what was necessary, I would be come much more knowledgeable about the content and theories. Sure enough, he was correct and years later I realized that by having to consider my audience I became much more knowledgeable about the subject matter and how to apply it in diverse situations. My students were my audience! And I hope that by meeting the needs of my audience I became a better teacher.

By considering the needs of their audience, students can become deeper learners. This deep learning will require students to think strategically, communicate effectively and apply interdisciplinary content and skills in meaningful ways.

Dr. David L. Reese serves as Chief Academic Officer for Defined Learning. During the past twenty years, Dr. Reese has served K-12 students as a science teacher, Curriculum Specialist, and Central Office Administrator. He has taught Masters and Doctoral courses in all areas of curriculum and professional development leadership. His work has focused upon providing students with engaging, relevant learning opportunities designed to encourage students to apply content from a local, national and international perspective.

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The Importance of Audience in Authentic Teaching and Learning - Defined STEM

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By Dave Reese How can the consideration for an audience enhance performance-based learning? As an emerging teacher I had a strong passion for project-based teaching and learning. I taught the life sciences and this strategy made a great deal of sense to me.

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How do you decide which tech tool is right for your project? Knowing your audience is just one step in the process. Consider the following questioning task to help students make tech choices:

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This ISTE standard requires students to use 4 critical skills:
✔️CHOOSE appropriate digital tools
✔️CREATE/remix unique content
✔️CLARIFY complex ideas
✔️CUSTOMIZE according to your audience
Let's take a look at each skill: what do they mean? How might teachers help students develop these skills? The video below gives a great overview of this standard, and the various tiles on this padlet focus on each skill subset and offer discussion points, ideas and lesson plans for teachers.