My colleagues used to laugh at me when I made my students collect the text books so that they all faced the same way and so that they stacked neatly, spines facing out on the bookshelf in my classroom. It’s true that being neat, tidy and organised sparks joy for me and nowhere more so than in a classroom which can be chaotic and unpredictable at times.
I obviously wasn’t alone in my want for organisation because at Showbie we have been hearing how teachers across the world have longed to get even more organised with our app. Without doubt, our most requested feature has been folders in folders and in December 2022 we were finally able to come good on our promise and folders in folders arrived in Showbie. Now, teachers have even more flexibility when setting up their class structure. Folders in folders enable you to differentiate material within classes, helping you keep your classes clean, tidy and easier for you and your students to navigate.
In true Showbie style we haven’t just given you folders in folders, we’ve given you folders, in folders, in folders which means that you can be even more organised! A three layer folder system was a deliberate choice on our part; too many folders and the system itself becomes cumbersome, too few and it lacks purpose. In Showbie it is the teacher that rightly determines the organisation of the filing system. This is key because students need to be able to see how an efficient and effective system works so that years down the line, when they have to organise their own files at work or university, they have an effective example to draw on.
So now that the long-awaited feature has arrived, how are our teachers using folders in folders? Of course, this is a very personal decision but we have seen the following examples;
- Teachers using folders to create resource banks of read-only information.
- Teachers of younger children using folders to store all the children’s artwork for a particular topic, keeping it separate from written work.
- Sports teachers making folders in folders to store video recordings of students taking part in sports, or honing their sporting skills so that they can be easily accessed for assessment at a later date.
The folders in folders update also enables you to finely tune your organisation; you can:
- Copy assignments into a sub-folder
- Copy an entire folder to a sub-folder
- Copy your entire class structure including the sub-folder structure
- And last but by no means least, you can view your sub-folders in the assignment overview meaning that it’s even easier to delve into certain aspects of your curriculum and ascertain the progress of your students.
This video shows you how to do all of the above.
We know that folders in folders has sparked much joy amongst the Showbie community, so why not let us know via Twitter how you are using folders in folders (in folders!)?
