Five ways students use Point & Ask wrong
Sana Qureshi ·
Point & Ask exists for the moment when you cannot put the problem into words. You share your screen, or a photo of the page, and ask about whatever is on it. It removes the worst part of getting help, which is describing a diagram in a sentence.
1. Sharing the whole screen when one window would do
Share the tab or window with the question in it. A whole desktop includes everything else you have open, and the answer gets vaguer the more it has to look at.
2. Asking "help" instead of asking something
The tutor can see the question. What it cannot see is where you stopped. "I got to the second line and did not know what to do with the minus sign" gets a far better answer than "explain this".
3. Photographing the page at an angle
If you are uploading a photo, take it square on and in decent light. A skewed photo of a diagram is hard for anyone to read, and the answer is only as good as what it can see.
4. Not saying which class you are in
Your class is set on your account, and every answer is pitched there. If the answers feel too advanced or too simple, that setting is the first thing to check.
5. Stopping once you have the answer
The answer is the least useful part. Ask it to turn the topic into a quiz while you still have it open. That is the step that turns a solved question into something you will still be able to do next month.