ShowMe app

By Claudia Padoan (adapted by Sarah Howarth)

The app: what is it?

ShowMe is a free iPad app that allows teachers to turn their tablet into a personal interactive whiteboard. Teachers can use it to create and share whiteboard-style tutorials with students. It’s easy and intuitive to use without any specific training. You can record your voice as well as adding pictures and text to the white board. The tutorials can be shared on your Facebook page or saved privately for sharing later with your students or on your blog, YouTube, etc.

Why use it?

For teachers, the app allows you to record visually stimulating lessons and share them with multiple learners at different times and in different locations.

Just as images can bring to life a course book or online course, using visual material in your language lessons can engage students and promote learning. Presenting and eliciting vocabulary using images is often very effective, avoiding the need for lengthy verbal explanations as, after all, a picture can speak a thousand words! Connecting words with images can also greatly assist vocabulary memorisation. Pictures are often used to generate classroom activities for example, when teachers use a map to elicit verbal directions from their students. Equally, visual timelines can be extremely helpful for explaining grammar tenses and ideas, often much more effective than wordy explanations.

Of course, as language trainers, we must always consider the learning styles of our students and when teaching groups, cater to different styles within our classroom. Whilst not all students prefer a visual teaching style, a well-balanced lesson would always include visual content of some type. And remember: the app allows you to record voiceovers, combining auditory with visual presentation.

Get started! If you are keen to give ShowMe a try, download the app from the App Store. You will need to create an account – and a free version is available. Give it go and start posting your tutorials!