Erika Fiore
URI Mathematics and Applied Mathematical Sciences
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Erika instructs pre-calculus and calculus courses at URI. Erika uses Notability over Zoom calls to showcase notes and annotations over resource files.
“Being able to organize your notes is a big benefit”Erika Fiore on Notability
Notability for All
Spotlight feature written by: Carol Araujo
During school time, it can be difficult to stay organized while taking notes, but Erika Fiore seems to have it all figured out. Born and raised in Rhode Island, she received her undergraduate degree here at URI in Secondary Education as well as getting her Masters in math back in 2019, with a graduate teaching assistantship. Fast forward to 2021, she is still a Graduate TA at the university and is now in her second year as a PhD student in Applied Mathematics. She has also been an instructor for both Pre-calculus and Calculus in these following classes: MTH 103, MTH 131 and MTH 141. With an impressive background in education, she continues her dissertation research project, on gender-specific learning experiences of women students in STEM related careers.
Teaching Tool Usage:
With having to juggle being a TA, instructor and student at the same time, it can be difficult to keep tabs on what assignments and/-or notes need to be stored. She has got all of this covered with Notability. Notability is a note taking app that was created by Ginger Labs that can be used for teaching and learning. Erika uses this app with her iPad and an Apple-pencil. She uses this tool daily as a virtual whiteboard to display notes for her students while teaching on Zoom. While screen sharing she launches Notability, to markup and annotate her PDF files or slides writing directly on top of the PDF/slideshow. When you scroll down, these annotations move around with the document. Erika relies on this tool to combine sketches, text for class collaboration. Notability folders can be created for different purposes and in Erika’s case, different classes.
Student Experience & Feedback
Erikas students enjoy using the tool as well. Erika shares her notes in Brightspace after live class sessions. Notability also provides the ability to record your teacher while writing as well. Students who own an iPad with an Apple pencil can also take notes over slides in Notability. With every good app, there are a few cons. You have to use the app in combination with Zoom if you want to showcase your notes, which means you have to log into Zoom twice to not only show your face, but as well the notes. It is only available for iOSApple products. There is also a one time fee of $8.99 to purchase Notability. Learning to use Notability is super intuitive and her advice to professors out there who are thinking about purchasing the app, is to play around with the app, click all the buttons, and figure out how things work along the way. She says, “It is all about looking around seeing what the different buttons can do, and you can go to the website support.gingerlabs.com and they have step-by-step instructions.” Erika’s use of this note-taking educational technology has greatly impacted student success. The tool helps students visually identify their instructor’s points of focus which translates well with often text heavy resources of study, assignments that they may have done, the note taking that they do for different subjects and the ability to record the lesson while taking notes. With that being said, this was our spotlight of the month!
View Erika’s video demo of Notability below:
Teaching Tool Resources:
Notability Learning Resources: Find step-by-step instructions and video tutorials https://support.gingerlabs.com/hc/en-us
TOOL SPOTLIGHT: Notability is a wide range note-taking and sketching tool that overlays handwriting, photos and text notes over files that can be shared with students.