Interactive Technology for Learning

Our Students' Development as Digital Citizens

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:11:00 +0000

A few days ago, I read and then commented on a post from David Truss titled, "Who Owns the Learning?" One of his major points is this: "We don’t own a student’s learning; It’s their learning." This got me thinking about my previous post about exporting student work from a SMART notebook as a .jpeg so that it could be displayed online. The teacher/student whose blog was cited has done more than just take an image from a notebook file and put it on a webpage - she's taken the learning and archived it on the web. This is also the beginning of an archive of this student's development as a digital citizen.

So, a number of questions are on my mind... when you create a SMART notebook for your instruction and the students interact with the content where does that learning reside? Does it all stay on your computer in your files? Do you click on "Don't Save" when you're done with the lesson? How can we take student learning from the teacher's computer to the worldwide web where student work can live on, where discussions can be had together and where it can be archived and revisited?

My challenge for you is to find answers to these questions - it will benefit your students more than you know!

Archiving the SMART Work of Your Students

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Mon, 31 May 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Put this one under "wish I had thought of that." Saw this idea on Twitter this afternoon and it's brilliant!

When you create a SMART Notebook for instruction, you're generally thinking about the content you'd like to present to your students. But, what about considering saving the work that students have done in that notebook so their learning is archived perhaps in a blog?

This grade 1 student created a picture with text in a SMART notebook. Instead of just saving it where it likely would live only on a computer, the work was exported as a .jpeg so that it could then be uploaded to the blog page. Now it lives on the web where it can be shared with the world and where others can give this student feedback about her work. Brilliant!

What ideas does this bring to mind for the work you're doing with your students?

Magnifying Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Thu, 13 May 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Google the word "smartboard" and you'll find a number of resources from teachers who are using Smartboards including lesson plans, tips and tricks, instructional strategies and much more.

When working with a Smartboard, there are a number of visual "tricks" that can be used to engage students in the learning. The Teacher Center in Vestal, NY publishes a blog "Getting Smarter with Smartboards." They have given teachers another ways of visually working with information with a technique called the Magic Magnifying Glass. It's super simple to set up in a SMART Notebook. Give it a try yourself and add a comment here about how you've used it in your instruction.

Flash Video for the Smart Notebook

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:25:00 +0000

UnitedStreaming, now known as Discovery Streaming, has for the past several years, provided us with the opportunity to download videos and video clips to use for instruction. We know that, with a Smartboard, you can play those videos using the Smart Video Player which allows you to annotate the learning as the lesson goes on and gives you the opportunity to capture the notes from the learning to a Notebook file for use in subsequent lessons.

The Smart Video Player will only play .wmv files which is what we usually download from Discovery Streaming. However, now there is a new way to download those files to use in a Smart Notebook lesson - Flash video. Flash is the same technology that is used for all those interactive files in the Lesson Activity Toolkit.

Go to Discovery Streaming and search for a video. Click on one of the results and you'll see a window on the left side where you can stream the video just to preview it. Right below that you'll see this:

Click on the dropdown next to Download Type. There you'll see three choices. If you choose the Flash option, you'll be downloading the video in a format that can be inserted into a Smart Notebook. Now download the video clip.

Open a Smart Notebook (one that you've saved that's appropriate for your video or a new one), choose Insert, then choose Flash file. This will place the video right on the Notebook page where you can move it, resize it and play it during a lesson. Now you can take notes as the video plays and save those notes for review in another lesson.

What's the advantage of Flash? I can think of two right away. The first is that Flash video files are smaller file sizes (saves room on our servers!) and the second is being able to take notes right next to the video or perhaps by using the split screen so that the video is playing on one page and you're taking notes on the other page.

If you'd like a demo of this, just let me know! Enjoy!

Interactive Lessons Online

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:05:00 +0000

The Learning Today blog links to a number of interactive materials that some of you might find useful in your instruction. These don't require you to insert them into a Smart Notebook. You can work with them online. Scroll down the page to see some additional links on the left side menu or use the Free Teacher Resources tab at the top of the page to explore the materials. I think you'll find that these present lots of opportunities for students to interact with the content.

You can also subscribe to the blog via email if you'd like to receive notice of updates. Enjoy!

Download YouTube videos for your SMART notebooks

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:44:00 +0000

Download Youtube Video. Just add 'Kiss'! Keep It Super Simple. - KissYouTube

In a SMART notebook, you can insert videos but they must be in the .flv format. Many times, you can find great instructional videos on YouTube. By inserting "kiss" in the URL in front of "youtube", you'll be able to download the video you want quite easily then insert it into a notebook [e.g. http://www.kissyoutube.com/...] Check out the website for more information about how to download the video.

tags: smartboard, youtube, flv

Posted from Diigo.

Phonics and Math

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Two sites (via Twitter) that I think you'll love for phonics and math:

Construct-a-Word: choose a word family and drag it to the ending, then you'll be given a choice of various beginnings to add on. This one is from ReadWriteThink.org which is a great place to find other interactive tools for ELA.

The second one is for math called "Splat Square." This Flash game lets you choose a colored "splat" then click in a square on a 100 grid. Looks like it would be good for recognizing patterns in counting. If you have any other ideas about using this resource, please add those to the comments. This one is from the Primary Games site. If you find anything else on that site that you think would be a good resource for teaching math using the Smartboard, please add it to the comments as well.

Enjoy!

ShareTabs

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:35:00 +0000

You might wonder why this site is being featured here. ShareTabs is a way of sharing your links as tabs. Now, in terms of really good Smartboard use this is not an interactive learning site. But, I'm thinking about being in a classroom and beginning a new unit of study in, let's say Science or Social Studies. These content areas are largely declarative knowledge so we have to provide our students with lots of information. Instead of giving our students links one at a time, this site would help us to aggregate all the relevant resources on one page. With the interactive whiteboard, having these all together on one page would make it so much easier to flow from one source of information to another. We talked about using the attachments tab to gather all the relevant resources as you plan your units and lessons. This would be a link to just one aggregate site to support all of your work. Here's a sample. What are your thoughts?

Smartboard Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:05:00 +0000

James Hollis continues to do amazing work in support of teachers everywhere who are using Smartboards. Here he shares video tutorials that he's created at the request of teachers. Some are by paid subscription only but those that have (complimentary) next to them are free for viewing. Most are very short and will provide you with well done step by step instructions.

Interactive Math

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:46:00 +0000

I know you all love the interactive tools in the Gallery that have really beefed up your math lessons. You might also take a look at what NCTM has to offer at its Illuminations website. You can search by grade level and I think you'll find some great things to use to make math even more interactive.

Scribble Maps

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:27:00 +0000

We've talked about using Google Maps and the Ink layer on the Smartboard before so that you could use an online map in your instruction then capture it to a Notebook page.

Here's another option you might want to try called Scribble Maps. With this you won't have to use the Ink layer at all. Just go to the site and you'll find all the tools you need to reposition the map, zoom in and out, "scribble" on the map with different colors, add placemarkers, etc. The "scribbling" part can be done with your finger since picking up the pen will enable the Ink layer.

You can still capture any part of your map that you might use in subsequent lessons to a Notebook.

Enjoy!

Teachers Love SMARTboards

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:15:00 +0000

This website is great! At Teachers Love SMARTboards, James Hollis is always highlighting resources that teachers might use with their SmartBoards. He also presents a challenge (I think each week) inspiring teachers to use the Notebook tools in different ways. When the challenge is complete, he announces the winner and provides a short video, detailing how the challenge could have been met. He's done lots of really innovative things with the software. Check it out!

Flash Video for Smart Notebook files

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:27:00 +0000

Adding video content to a Smart Notebook file is easy but it must be a Flash video. One source of Flash video is YouTube but you'll need a little help to download those files. This link will take you to a tutorial that was done on a Mac. The process is very similar on a PC. (YouTube is blocked on school computers so you'll need to do this download at home and insert the file into a Smart Notebook or you can bring the Flash file to school on a memory stick and insert it into a Notebook there.)

Another source of Flash video is TeacherTube. To download from TeacherTube you'll need another little piece of software. Go to www.downloadtoolz.com/teachertube. This software is only made for PC. Once it's downloaded and installed on your computer, just copy the address of the video you want and start to download. Instead of downloading from TeacherTube, you could link to the website address or embed the video in your own website or wiki. Link to the video from your Notebook file for easy access.

Video from Teacher Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:58:00 +0000

This video, from a kindergarten teacher, is on the TeacherTube website. It was submitted to the SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard TeacherTube Video Contest 2008 and is a great example of Smartboard use. Check it out!

Templates for the Smartboard

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Thanks to Natalie for sending in this website where you'll find a number of templates for the Smartboard at every grade level.

http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/EDTECH/SB/templates.htm

Enjoy!

Click here for Smart Board activities.

noreply@blogger.com (Jackie Campbell) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:32:00 +0000

This is a fantastic web site with MANY Smart Board activities arranged by subject and grade level. They are mostly for elementary, but there are some activities marked K-12.

Smartboard Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:59:00 +0000

As we begin the new school year with those wonderful Smartboards, it will help all of us if we communicate via this blog to share any technical glitches you find, share what is working well in your instruction and anything else that we should be keeping track of. Please enter comments here and check back often to see what's going on. Enjoy!

Smartboard Training Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:46:00 +0000

What questions do you still have about using the Smartboard? What tools do you think would be the most useful in your instruction?

Smartboards and Training

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:35:00 +0000

With the arrival of our Smartboards so late in the school year we don't have time right now for training. But...never fear! Smartboards are so easy to use and you can begin to make use of them in your instruction without the Smartboard software and without the full training that we'll be providing later on.

I sent out a list of sites that seemed especially conducive to using with a Smartboard and the software already on your machines provide other options.

As you begin to work with either of these after the installation of your board, please return here and post a comment to make additional suggestions for lessons, resources or suggestions.

"You are what you share."
Photo from Flickr

Math on a Smartboard

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:16:00 +0000

Here's a link to a website containing some interactive activities for math. Some of these seem especially well suited for Smartboard use while others can be done just as easily on a computer alone. As you take a look through some of these, please leave a comment here about what you see and how you think it might be used.

Graphic from Melinda Kolk courtesy of Pics4Learning

Getting Started with Smartboards

noreply@blogger.com (Diane Quirk) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:45:00 +0000

As we work to place Smartboards in our elementary classrooms, it will benefit all of us to share our learning and our new ideas. This blog will be a point from which we can begin.

So, to get us started here are a few links you'll want to explore:
http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Support/SBS/
This page contains links to the Smart Notebook software which you'll be using to create "Smart" lessons. The software can be downloaded to your own personal computer for you to begin to explore the tools. I believe we'll eventually be using version 1o of the software but it requires a serial number from the Smartboard. Since ours aren't installed yet, you can use the link for versions 9.7 and 9.5. You'll see that the software can be used on either a Mac or PC.

http://education.smarttech.com
On this educator's portion of the Smart Corporation's website, you'll be able to explore already created lessons. The lessons contain links to download the actual files you would need for the lesson. Since these will only run in the Smart Notebook software, be sure you have that on your computer first.

http://csdsmarties.blogspot.com/
This is a blog that is maintained by some folks in the Concord School District in New Hampshire and was the inspiration for this blog. They are sharing some great ideas with their teachers. Be sure to take a look at the entry for March 20, 2008. It contains a short movie made by a student showing his demonstration of how to add fractions using tools for the Smartboard - it's really cool!