Tag Archives: How To ShowMe

My humble experience

Posted on by
Reply

I still remember my first lesson introducing ShowMe to my students. I had concerns; would students be able to connect to the website and watch the videos, would they like the videos, would they enjoy working on the subject via their laptops, etc. I was really excited;  this was my first time that I integrated this much of technology in my math lessons. Apart from the interactive whiteboard and the projector, which I displayed students’ progress, I had my Mac and my IPad to prepare not only worksheets, quizzes, etc, but videos! Also, I would not teach the whole time in my lessons anymore. Rather, I would have mini teaching sessions of 10-15 minutes for introduction and/or recalling purposes only, and then walk around students to check their progress and answer their questions; that was my dream.

laptops on, heads down, my students are working on the subject

If dreams match 100% with reality, we would not call them dreams. Generally speaking, what I planned just worked, I should admit. Students visited my website on their Macs, clicked on the links and watched the videos, and after understanding the subject, solved the questions / problems in the videos, and then showed their answers to me, and I marked them after checking. But there were about twenty of them, each calling me to ask a particular question about the subject, or to say that they did not understand the video, or they even could not connect the Internet, or they had no pencil / notebook, etc. Moreover, when I was answering questions or doing a mini teaching session to a student or a group of students, -not all but some- others tend to connect to Facebook or YouTube, or to play games. In the beginning, there was chaos.

Abdulla Mohamed is working hard

Gradually, everything started settling up. Each of us figured out what was going on, and adjusted ourselves to the ‘new order’. My dream almost came true; students were watching the videos, solving the questions and showed me the results, and I marked them. I was wandering around helping the students understand the subject better. And guess what; almost all of them were doing the classwork! They liked the videos such that they all learned the phrase I used at the end of my videos; solve and ShowMe!

There should be something wrong in that. No offence, ShowMe Crew, but my videos can not be that “magical”. And this time, my nightmare came true; the results of the first campus wide quiz were horrible, comparing to the classwork marks. For example, a student of mine, who failed in Term 1, completed about 80% of his classwork (wow!), yet his CWQ mark was 4 out of 20! And I had several more examples like that! About one fourth of my students showed no significant difference after I introduced ShowMe.

I started to observe what they were doing, and found out their strategy. Some of the students pretended to watch the video, until the sharp students show their answers. Then they copied those students’ work and came to me to get their marks.

How could I miss this? Probably because of my optimistic character; I believed they all would like the videos and study more than ever!!  Anyway, I should have planned an assessment system ASAP. After searching for several online quiz maker websites, I decided that I would go with the traditional paper-pencil method, because (a) those websites were lacking mathematical symbols to type, and they tend to support multiple-choice questions, rather than essay types, and (b) there was no exact way to know if a student answered an online quiz on his own. So, I added a 10-minute quiz session at the end of each period and stopped marking their classwork. I write questions for each video -generally 1 question/video- and ask the students to answer questions referring to the video/s they worked on. Then I mark the quizzes ASAP and record the progress in my table. Ones who answered correct can go on with the next videos. Ones who answered wrong work on additional materials; I give them extra worksheets. Then they try to answer a similar question referring to the same video. This is how they earn their marks.

I thought ‘the new order’ would encourage them, but it did not. What happened is, my classwork marks and my quiz results now match!

I have some success stories, though. I have some students who increased their marks significantly. One of them has never been able to get a two-digit mark out of 100 before, but he improved his marks gradually and the recent mark he has got is 90%. He is in top three of the class now. My successful students also increased their marks; because they like to work on the subject on their own, in silence. One of them, really smart but a problem child, is no more a problem to me. He turns on his music after watching the video, and then starts solving the questions.

I believe I made a good start, yet I have issues to solve. Next year, my school will move to a new campus, where teachers are said to have their own rooms. And another rumor is, students -and hopefully, teachers- will be given IPads instead of hard-copy books. I think I will be able to solve most of my issues and find new opportunities to improve what I do with ShowMe. On the other hand, I don’t want to re-discover America; so if you have similar experience or information, please share with me; charb74 (at) gmail (dot) c o m.

Make your ShowMe Standout!

Posted on by
Reply

ShowMe is just as much about creating a learning community as it is about creating lessons. Because of this, If you create awesome ShowMe lessons we want you to share them with as many people as possible in our community! There are a few things you can do to make your ShowMe more likely to gain views.

1. Make a Clear, Informative Title. The title of a ShowMe says a lot. Make sure your title clearly states what we will learn. Also, try to include words you think people would type in when searching for ShowMes on your topic.

2. Make your ShowMe Public and Include Topics. When you upload your ShowMe to the site from the iPad make sure you list your ShowMe as public!!! Otherwise others will not be able to view your ShowMe. When you upload your ShowMe you will also be able to include topics. Let’s say you taught a lesson on Fractions, you can add the topics “Math” and “Fractions” when uploading. This will guarentee that your ShowMe appears in search results when people type “Fractions” or “Math” into the search bar. You can also follow topics, and anyone who is following those two topics could see your ShowMe in their recommendations list.

3. Be Interactive. People are more likely to see your ShowMe if you watch the ShowMes of others! If you enjoyed the ShowMe of another user make sure you let them know by clicking the “Like” button on their page. Follow users that create lessons you love, and add users you know as Friends. If you are interactive with users in the ShowMe community you are more likely to have others notice you as well.

4. Keep Your ShowMe Short and Concise. Never make a ShowMe longer than needed. People enjoy watching short, informative lessons. But, with that in mind, don’t sacrifice the quality and content of your ShowMe in an attempt to keep in brief. If you have an extensive topic you want to teach, consider creating sevearal ShowMes on different parts of the lesson instead of one long ShowMe. It is important that a stand-out ShowMe is able to maintain viewer engagement.

5. Spruce up your Profile. After people watch your awesome ShowMe they will hopefully begin subscribing to you and watching other ShowMes you create! Be sure to add a profile image and a short bio about yourself and why you use ShowMe!

 

 

 

How To: Prepare before recording your ShowMe

Posted on by
Reply

Before you hit record you can add text and images the same way you would while recording. Doing this prep work before you record creates a smoother more concise  ShowMe for viewers.

Images: You can chose photos from your photo library, take a photo or (the coolest option) search for an image on the web! If you insert an image you will see a tool bar underneath. This tool bar allows you to delete the image, rotate it, and move images to the front or back of your screen (which is handy when you have multiple images.) You can also resize your ShowMe by pinching the image in to shrink or out to grow with two fingers.
**Tip: if you are going to be using a lot of images in your ShowMe it can be useful to layer images on top of one another before you record for a smoother transition between images while recording.
Now that you have prepared for your ShowMe, hit record and begin! :)

You can find our entire collection of How-To tutorials for using ShowMe here. 

How-to: Understand you Profile Page on the ShowMe app.

Posted on by
Reply

Your Profile Page

On My iPad:
These are the ShowMes that have been created on this iPad. If you only use one iPad than you will every ShowMe you’ve ever created. If you share the iPad with others then this section will contain all the ShowMes created on that iPad while logged into your account.

Posted:
These are the ShowMes you have posted to the website, both privately and publicly. You will see a small green image in the right top corner of each Showme. A small globe means the ShowMe is public, a keylock means the ShowMe is private.

Likes:
This is a list of all the ShowMes from other users that you have liked in the past. A good tip: if you wanted to save a ShowMe to watch later, hit “like” so that it can appear in this feed for future viewing.

Topics:
This is a list of all the Topics you follow. If you click on a topic it will take you to a page filled with featured ShowMes on the topic of your choice. If you want to follow a new topic, click “Search” in the left hand column. Type something you are interested, for example, Factoring. This will bring you to a list of Factoring Topics that you can chose to follow.

You can find our entire collection of How-To tutorials for using ShowMe here. 

How-to: Have students use ShowMe to teach each other!

Posted on by
Reply

I recently went to 7th grade classroom in Mineola, NY where they proudly declare their classroom motto is “think different!” I was incredibly impressed with the students and teachers and totally jealous of the things they were getting to work on!

One really awesome thing that they told me about was the way they use ShowMe. Instead of the teacher creating lessons to share with students, after assessments the teachers figure out where each students’ strength lies. Students are then assigned a topic or a problem to teach using ShowMe. The last step in the process is to assign a student created ShowMe to another student who might be struggling or need a little extra help with the topic. Students get to learn from and help their peers which is what a 21st century classroom should look like!

If you think this is a great idea for your classroom, here is how to do it:

  1. Give your students an assessment or temperature check for understanding. You can also let them volunteer their favorite part of a unit!
  2. Assign each student a problem set or area of study to teach. They should be able to cover the subject in under 5 minutes.
  3. If you have one iPad in the classroom, set up a station in a quiet part of the room and create a schedule to let students know when they will be creating your ShowMes. If you have a cart or 1-to-1 classroom, let students work on their ShowMes in waves. The room can get quite noisy with 28 students all teaching at once!
  4. Each student should save and upload their ShowMe and then email the link to you. Save these links all in once place on a class website or blog.
  5. Assign these student created ShowMes as review work to help students who need to strengthen their skills!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...