When students create and share via their classroom devices, amazing things can happen!

Whether practicing their non-fiction writing skills or demonstrating learning in Math, the “ShowMe” app for teachers and students is a powerful tool for creating presentations, video tutorials, or recorded lessons. Results can be shared from student to student, from teacher to a class, and from classroom to the world.

ShowMe is available for iPads via the Apple App Store, from Google Play, or from the Chrome Web Store. For the purposes of this blog post, I am using the ShowMe app on my iPad.

The free version of the ShowMe app is packed with a lot of functionality.  The premium or full version adds sharing and saving capabilities, but the typical classroom can get by without the additional cost.  You can download the app version from the App Store, or get it on your teacher computer from www.showme.com.

Getting Started with ShowMe

To get started, I recommend mirroring the teacher iPad image up to your classroom display to model what you want students to learn and create with using ShowMe. If this is not possible, go to the online version to model things that students can do on their iPads.  Students will be able to learn the basic creation tools within ShowMe very quickly when you give them a visual demonstration.

Start by creating a username and password to save “ShowMes.” Form student groups to share with and post content.

In a flipped classroom environment, students can go to the “Explore” tab at the top to access publicly shared ShowMes from teachers and students around the world.  Teachers can recommend their students watch certain titles as a requirement or as a review of classroom learning.

The red “Create” link on the right lets you create new presentations from scratch or add page backgrounds and pictures.

If students or teachers have documents or other resources they want to use in their presentations, they can click on the “More” button (three dots) to the right of the “Create” button to bring in files from a DropBox or Google Drive location.

In a new ShowMe, see the tools interface at the top of the app.  You can use a finger or stylus to handwrite annotations, add pictures, or type text.  Notice the red record button. Students can record voiceovers as they go through their own presentations. Is there something your students have learned that they can turn into a video?

Classroom Strategies

Non-Fiction Writing

For non-fiction writing, students can annotate over a city map showing how they would travel from one place to another. In their ShowMe, they narrate this action as they write over the map showing the path.  As part of this work, students are required to write out their directions in a clear, sequential way such that anyone could follow their directions and get where they need to go.

Math

After watching similar ShowMes related to their math class lessons, students record their own examples, working them out on a ShowMe whiteboard and recording their voices explaining the steps.  Can other students follow and successfully complete the same math problems?

ELA or History

After doing some research on an ELA or History lesson, students can gather pictures and other media and put together their own ShowMe presentation. Their final project should include images, charts, diagrams, and web links.  Each student ShowMe presentation can be considered part of a jigsaw lesson for an entire unit.

I hope you try ShowMe and let us know your ideas for using and creating new ShowMes for the classroom.  Do you have any that you like to use in your teaching?  Email us your classroom success stories and ideas at training@teq.com.