Paperless classroom app Showbie now optimized for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil
Apple has transformed the way educators teach and students learn, and it’s thanks in no small part to iOS devices and apps that run on them to make teaching and learning easier. One of these apps is the paperless clasroom app Showbie, which has just received a significant update.
If you’re a teacher, you can use Showbie to easily assign, collect and review your students’ work from other apps, or have your students complete assignments using the app’s built-in rich annotation tools or using apps that are compatible with Showbie.
Showbie is available for iPhone as well as iPad. But in the main, the app is optimized for iPad. And this is made more apparent by its latest update, which delivers improvements for Apple’s newer tablets.
iPad multitasking
First up, the latest update to Showbie adds support for iPad multitasking in iOS 9.
On iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, or iPad mini 2 or later, you can use Slide Over to quickly check Showbie over another app. And on iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, or iPad mini 4, you can use Split View to use Showbie side by side with another app at the same time. “Maybe you’d like to consult a grading rubric while annotating and grading student work in Showbie,” the Showbie team notes, “or have your students browse online resources while working on their assignment.”
iPad Pro support
Showbie is now also fully optimized for iPad Pro. If you have Apple’s 12.9-inch tablet, you’ll be able to see more content at once in Showbie, even in portrait mode. You’ll also be able to see more even when you’re typing feedback if you use a Smart Keyboard with your iPad Pro, since the onscreen keyboard need not be displayed.
What’s more, Showbie is now compatible with Apple Pencil, allowing you to make smooth and accurate annotations with palm rejection support.
Teach and learn with Showbie
The new version of Showbie also features improved VoiceOver support and improved language support.
Moreover, it includes adjustments to parent access to assignments (which was added to Showbie last month), making parent access disabled by default when a new class is created.
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Compatible with iPad running iOS 8.0 or later, Showbie is available on the App Store for free, with a $11.99 in-app purchase for unlocking the app’s Pro features including quantitative grade tracking, richer feedback, larger file size support, assignment locking, and complete parent access to assignments.
