Environment-friendly, Teacher-friendly Showbie!

Penguin courtesy of Carol Redmond
  http://www.carolredmond.blogspot.com    

QR code scavenger hunts occur about once a month in my class. I love watching my students in action - they are all very engaged in solving the problems they "find", and searching for the next problem to solve. Originally I had my students solve the problems on paper, which got turned in for me to grade. Today's scavenger hunt was entirely paperless (well, OK, I did print out the pages with the penguins and the QR codes to hang up around the room).

Enter Showbie. I have developed a crush on Showbie! It has made my life so much easier! 

In the past, workflow was a big issue. After the first few scavenger hunts on paper, I tried going paperless by having my students solving problems from the QR code scavenger hunt by opening the PDF in an annotation app such as neu.Annotate+ PDF. From there, they would email me every. single. problem. separately. Either my inbox would be stuffed with student emails, or the email system would somehow get hung up and I wouldn't receive any of the emails for several days. What a headache! 


Now, when they scan the QR code, they choose to "Open in...Showbie". They can annotate right there in the Showbie app (in the photo, the student's work is in the black ink). When they tap "Done", it goes right into their folder for me to review later. Then I can grade/comment on it and it goes back into their folder again so they can see it when they go into Showbie the next day (my annotation is in red ink).

I should also mention that I have been putting the "Do Now"s in the shared Showbie folder too. Students go into their folders and grab a copy of the Do Now, annotate it, and tap Done to submit it to me. 

Besides making me a happy teacher, Showbie is hopefully making some trees happy too!

[Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for this complete Multiplying & Dividing with Exponents QR code scavenger hunt.]