Talking SMARTBoards & Much More!

PlagiarismTool

anne marie — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:01:46 +0000

Isn’t it funny how things sometimes just happen. My friend, Lisa, asked me this week if I knew of any interactive plagiarism sites that she could use with her middle school students and off the top of my head I didn’t have any answers. Fast forward to tonight…. I’m on Twitter and what do I see but a post by The Teacher Page about this great interactive plagiarism site produced by the Vaughan Memorial Library at Acadia Univeristy. This interactive will present well on the SMARTBoard for a class lesson/review. I just shared it with my friend and the Library Media Specialists in my district and thought I should share it here, too–ENJOY!

e-Learning for kids

anne marie — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:39:27 +0000

A friend of mine, Marie, sent me a link to e-Learning for Kids and I’m glad she did! It is filled with wonderful free resources…

“Established in late 2004, e-Learning for Kids is a global, nonprofit foundation dedicated to fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages 5 – 12. We offer free, best-in-class courseware in math, science, reading and keyboarding; and we’re building a community for parents and educators to share innovations and insights in childhood education.”

It is available in 4 languages and is very user and SMARTBoard friendly, not to mention the programs are motivating, interactive, fun, educational and some ven have voice input-YEAH!! There are so many great lessons, games, etc.- too many to mention, so head on over and do soem exploring, guaranteed you won’t be disappointed!

Happy Thanksgiving!

anne marie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:14:46 +0000

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wishing everyone celebrating Thanksgiving today a day filled with family and friends, fun and laughter, health and peace, rest and relaxation, football games and pumpkin pie! ENJOY!

iCue

anne marie — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:07:10 +0000

If you haven’t heard/read all the buzz about iCue from NBC Learn, it’s time you did! iCue is an acronym for Immerse, Connect, Understand and Excel. This is a dynamic, fun site that offers access to hundreds of videos, graphs, images. letters, cartoons, etc. and allows you to share information. It’s quite unique. In there own words…

“iCue is a free, online, collaborative learning environment for students and lifelong learners ages 13 and up. It includes discussion forums, fun games and activities, and hundreds of current and historic videos from NBC News. Whether you are joining to improve your grades, connect with friends, or just learn new things, iCue gives you a safe, fun environment for discussion and learning.”

All of this informaiton is correlated to courses in U.S. History, U.S. Government and Politics, English Language and Composition and more. Click on this link for a quick, informative tou r of iCUE. There also is a very extensive FAQ section that will answer any questions you might have about iCUE. You will need to create a free account which is easy and painless. All of this opens the door wide for student collaboration, teacher directed activities and lots of learning! ENJOY!

Interesting Ways to Use….

anne marie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:26:58 +0000

Tom Barrett is the creative mind behind the Interesting Ways to Use Series. If you have not yet checked out his blog and specifically this series I highly recommend that you do! He has created presentations for Intersting Ways to…. “Use Audio, Use a Wiki, Use Wordle, etc. The really neat thing about these presenations (created in Google Docs) is that it is a collaborative effort by teachers from all around the world. You can even add your ideas to any of his presentations which is what I just did on his 13 Interesting Ways to Use WallWisher in your Clasroom. I wrote about WallWisher this summer (here is that link). The versatility and ease of use of this site is what makes it so wonderful for teachers and students, not to mention it is free! We have used it in our district for students to create an Honor Wall for Veterans in their lives and to post book reviews. So I posted those two ideas Tom’s presentation to share with others. I believe I was slide/idea #9 & 10!! So a big Thank you to Tom Barrett for having the vision and inspiring others to collaborate and learn from one another. ENJOY!

Triptico is Terrific!

anne marie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:52:32 +0000

Triptico is a site that every teacher who uses a SMARTBoard should take the time to check out since it offers several free interactive activities that are simply wonderful! I love them all! ENJOY!

HelpKidzLearn

anne marie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:08:51 +0000

HelpKidzLearn is a collection of free software for young children and those with learning difficulties to play online. The software is catagorized into four sections: Games and Quizzes, Stories and Songs, Creative Play, Find Out About.

Many of the options work very well with the SMARTBoard - I love the Snakes and Ladders game which is very similar to the board game, Shoots and Ladders. This game is awesome for practicing counting skills, eye/hand coordination, turn taking skills, etc. Some of the options also present with audio support- like the Shopping Time Game.

HelpKidzLearn was created and is maintained by Inclusive Technology Ltd. There is a great interactive visual timeline produced by the Down’s Syndrome Association, that once downloaded can be used to easily produce timetables with pictorial clues for young children and those with more complex difficulties. This timeline can be a positive supplement to daily schedule boards to assist students in anticipating transitions and daily schedules. ENJOY!

Magic Studio

anne marie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:00:26 +0000

Magic Studio is a Network of Interactive Learning that has been on my “need to explore closer” list since this summer. I started to explore it this week and have really found some of the features to be versatile for the SMARTBoards, classroom use (laptops) and on wikis (embed). One of the advantages is that if you create an activity to use on the SMARTBoard you can then embed that into your class wiki for students to use as a review– now that is AWESOME!!! I should note that you do need Macromedia Flash Player 8 or above to use Magic Studio. If you navigate to the Browse feature you will find “great images, video, audio, reference text and interactive resources to customise or to use straight away just as they are.” For example, here is a great pre-made drag and drop review to practice addition (2-10). To use with the SMARTBoard I would view it in full screen. There is a zoom feature so you can make the screen even larger. You could also embed this drag and drop into your wiki or blog as a student review. Here is a link to the Magic Studio Tour which give you an overview of the features. In addition to the drag and drop feature Magic Studio will also allow you to create an interactive image explorer, a timeline, presentation, quiz or a featurette ( text and media). Basically you are adding “hotspots” to create the interactive- very coool!! You can upload your own images, etc. or you can use content from their content channels. Everything you create remains private unless you decide to share it. You can sign up for a free individual account to save and create activities. They also offer an enhanced, paid for service to schools ”wishing to take advantage of cross-platform collaboration, sharing and community building amongst teachers, learners and parents”. ENJOY!

ABC Adventure

anne marie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:03:34 +0000

Harcourt Publishing has an ABC Adventure interactive game that teaches/reinforces the letters of the alphabet. A keyboard appears on the screen and the player uses their computer keyboard to fill in the missing letters. It has nice voice output and I like that the letters are highlighted. A very basic, effective activity. This is a great activity for students to review the alphabet and practice keyboarding skills. It presents well on the SMARTBoard and you could either have students use the computer attached to the SMARTBoard or use the SMARTBoard keyboard. ENJOY!

SMART Contest

anne marie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:01:40 +0000

Steve Anderson over on the Blogging About the We 2.0 Connection in the Classroom Blog announced a contest that I wanted to pass along. The SMART folks have given him one copy (1 License, up to 40 Machines) of their SMART Classroom Suite Software to give away. So how do you enter and hopefully win this contest, you ask? Well you have to create a 1 minute video showing how you use SMART Products, post your video to You Tube and then fill out the Contest Form which is located on his blog page.
The contest started yesterday, November 17th and will be open until Dec. 15 2009. The winner will be announced on Dec. 21. 2009 with the winning video featured on his blog. So if you’re feeling creative and want a chance at winning this amazing software head over to Steve’s blog to get all of the details. Good Luck!