Using ShowMe as a Teacher

Last year as I mentioned in my previous post Antonio, a student showed me how to put a ShowMe into iMovie via an app Free Video (Video Download-iBolt Downloader & Manager).  I have played around with this and made a movie about solving a subtraction problem using rounding to a tidy number and then compensating. A very quick mental strategy to use when one number is near a tidy number.

However there are some students who are very slow to grasp how easy it is. I thought if I had a video they could watch that may help.  Previously they might have looked at a modelling book, although I never was satisfied with these as groups changed and .... well maybe I didn't make them work that well for me. A wiki with videos of work covered makes more sense to me.

Some of the students made ShowMe videos last year, and they worked well, but Antonio took it up a notch with his presentation.  I decided before I sent students off to do it this year, I needed to experience it myself.
As I did the ShowMe presentation I found that I had to be prepared, I found it best to do some writing before I pushed record.  I also found it was very important to watch the video through before the save, to notice any errors.  I had a number of tries before I was reasonably satisfied.

After making this movie, I have thought that while I will continue to make more of these presentations, I will also have students make similar ones to show their understanding.  When making my next video I will only show one problem, and add in a section showing it with materials. (The beauty of putting it in iMovie).  I will then leave a problem for the student to solve and gather materials to show me their thinking. They can then make their own ShowMe to add to our collection.

I am working on in my own teaching finding ways that will make a difference to the tail in Maths in my classroom so this will be a step into that inquiry. Does it make a difference?

Here is my first presentation that I worked on, the next time it will have the changes I mention above.

If you would like to see how I downloaded the ShowMe presentation so that I could place it in iMovie you can see that here in my previous post.

If you have other ideas for using ShowMe with students I would love to hear them.

Use Show Me, Free Video and iMovie on your iPad.

Last year Antonio, one of my students showed me how to use the Free Video app to download a ShowMe presentation and then place it in iMovie and add to it and edit.  At the time I thought this was a good idea as sometimes sites close and I might lose my ShowMe videos.  I also liked that you could make it look just a little slicker in presentation.  ShowMe and the Free Video app are free (Video Download iBolt Downloader and Manager), iMovie you pay for but it is well worth it.

1. Make your ShowMe presentation.  I found this took me awhile, as I made a number of mistakes and only saw them when I played it back.  
2. ShowMe emails you your presentation link when it is saved. Copy this link.
3. Open the Free Video App.      
4. When this is open you will see something like this. Except until you download something the shelves will be blank!  Notice the position of the slide to the left. You are going to slide this up to paste in your ShowMe link.

When you have the slide up it will now look like this.

Press Go on the iPad keyboard and you will then be taken to your ShowMe presentation. Which will begin to load in like this.

Until it is fully loaded.

Press the play button and it will ask you to Cache Video to Memory, press that and it will automatically begin to download.

When it has downloaded it will appear on your shelf.

The final step is just to press on the video and choose save to camera roll. 

When you open up iMovie you are able to pick it up from your camera roll and insert it into your iMovie time line. You can then add a title, music, other pictures and video as you wish.

Thanks Boys.

There are some weeks and this has been one of those, when at the end of the week I feel flat and depleted.  A little over whelmed by what I haven't been able to accomplish - too much school wide focus and not enough time to actually plan for my class programme.

Opening my computer after school I view a video made by some of my students, and watch them teach about HCFs and LCMs.  They do it well, however that's not what makes me smile and forget the weariness of the week.  Rather it's the giggles that come as they share a few of their bloopers.  Thanks guys.  I needed that laugh.

I wonder how long it is going to take them to figure out their factors of 57 are incorrect! I think they mean 56, at least I hope so!

The Joy of New Learning!

Some of my students do the ICAS Mathematics papers with the University of New South Wales. They just like the challenge and it’s a choice for them if they want. Those that are good at Mathematics generally like to give it a go.

The following question in the Yr 7 and Yr 8 paper had the better students in my class stumped. As their teacher I was totally lost as well.  Teegan went home and asked her sister and she came back with an explanation that we couldn’t follow so being the end of term and year we left it.

However when the holidays came around it was something I wanted to find out about so I took the problem to my friend and a past Math’s teacher to help me.  Here was the problem.

35.                          4! = 4x3x2x1

                                5! = 5x4x3x2x1

                                Jess wrote the expression 20! – 19! on the board.

                                Which of the following has the same value as this expression?

(A)        1!

(B)        20

(C)        19x19!

(D)         20x19!

When first looking at it I thought maybe (A).  I was applying the only background knowledge I had which was  taking 20! – 19! =  and thinking of it as 20a – 19a =.          However having peeked at the answers I knew this wasn’t correct. I was worried by the top piece of information but I couldn’t find any pattern and in the end chose to ignore it.

                                                                   

                                                       

However now I have new information!   The ! is a special symbol, it stands for factorial. I hadn't known that. So 4! stands for 4x3x2x1.    5! as above.  6! would be 6x5x4x3x2x1.   Factorial is related to the word factor. So 6,5,4,3,2,1 are all the factors of 6!

I now had some helpful information but it took me awhile longer.  So….

20! – 19!  =  20 x (19 x 18……x1) – 19x(18x17….x1)

                  = 20 x 19! – 19!

                    = 19 x 19!          which is (C)

Factorial numbers get bigger quickly.   20! is 20 x 19!  so if we take away one 19! we have 19 x19!

20! is 20 times larger than 19!

The part in blue took me a little while to get.  Later in the day I went over it in my head and I said to my friend awhile later, “So I’m going over the factorial thing and this is what I think…

As he listened he said “I don’t think you have got this part, and he named the place where 20! is 20 times greater than 19!, so we chatted over that and finally I saw it.  Or at least I did, until I sat down to write this and then I had to go to his paper to look at the notes he had jotted down and then it came back to me.

Now to those that did Maths for high school and college this probably is a no brainer. But for me who was told in Year 10 that girls didn’t need Maths (1960’s) this was very new learning.  My love is reading and writing, however I need to teach Maths to Year 8 and I actually enjoy it too.
 

Why did I want to solve this problem?  Well firstly I was driven by the fact that I wanted to be able to teach my students about it.  That was my why.  It has no other relation to my life, and I have to say it probably has little relevance to a large part of the population.  So why would my students need it? Well obviously they are not going to get the message that girls don’t need Maths so it is a small step in the bigger picture.  Now that I knew the word factorials I was empowered to search further about them. A video on You Tube showed me a little more. 

I hadn’t seen them mentioned in Algebra at the Year 8 level but what’s the harm in going further? I was partly driven also by my need not to have my students say half way through the year “I haven’t learned anything new in Maths this year!”  Now while it wasn’t Teegan who said this, or indeed anyone in my class in 2011, I know I will get great joy in sharing my knowledge with her and the others who are ready for it.   Students who on the whole are showing through testing they are at Level 5 in the NZ curriculum but are still at primary school.

And learning for the sake of learning is actually very satisfying.  Now I need to share it in a way my students will get it, so that one day very soon they can go beyond me.  One thing I can predict is they are going to grasp this far quicker than I did.