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.