Teachers Love SMART Boards

SMARTBoards and Live Notebook Training - Workshop 1

To all teachers who love SMARTBoards...

I will be doing a live demonstration of how to create the Wordle Word of the Day activity as shown below. If you cannot see the video, please click here.

Not only will you learn a few new skills in using the Smart Notebook software, you'll also learn how to create an engaging starter activity for your classroom.

The demonstration is scheduled for February 10, 2010, at 5:00 PM CST. To view the demonstration, you can visit the Teacher Online Training Ustream page. Make sure you RSVP so I know how many people will be there!

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Teacher Online Training is the most effective, affordable, and fun way to learn how to use the Smart Notebook software. They are currently offering an amazing discount for educators to subscribe - only $7.48 for the first month of a monthly subscription. Click here to find out more.

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SMARTBoards and Ad-free Resources - Volume 3

The final installment in my battle against educational resources that contain inappropriate advertisement will focus on interactive resources provided by education publishers.

This is a key topic since the educational field is quickly moving away from static textbooks to interactive and customizable media formats.  If the education publishers don't react quickly, they won't be part of the transition.

Here are a few education publishers who seem aware of this transition and are already providing exceptional interactive educational content for the classroom:

TES iboard Interactive Resources 

The TES Connect site is a social online network for teachers created by one of the largest educational publishers in the United Kingdom (TSL Education Ltd). Just recently, they acquired the resources from iboard and made them available free of charge. While they are included on the TES Connect website, you need to create an account first. To by-pass this step, you can go directly to the iboard Interactive Resources iboard player and select resources on the right side of the page. These activities are absolutely fantastic and they allow you to copy the activity links and save them in your bookmarks, blogs, or web pages.

Scholastic

I just wrote a detailed blog post about the amazing resources found on the Scholastic website. They seem to realize that the interactive whitebook is an effective tool if used appropriately. As a result, they have created an entire section dedicated to resources for the interactive whiteboard organized by subject matter. You can read my blog post for more information or you can just go there and start looking around.

Harcourt

This site actually contains a lot of great interactive resources. Unfortunately, they make it a little challenging to find the free resources.

I still recommend that you browse their site; however, I'll include some links to help you go directly to my favorite Math and Science resources on their site:

Science Up Close

Think Math!

I hope that more educational publishers start providing resources developed specifically for the interactive whiteboard. Unfortunately, the U.S. publishers seem torn between providing free content and providing subscription-based content.

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SMARTBoards and Ad-free Resources - Volume 2

Volume 2 of SMART Boards and Ad-free Resources will focus on two non-profit organizations dedicated to helping teachers and students find and use exceptional interactive educational resources.

2Learn.ca

The non-profit organization 2Learn.ca is one of those amazing resources that I really should have highlighted months ago. The fact is, I was introduced to this resource approximately a year ago and I saved the link in my bookmarks and I completely forgot about it until I started researching information for this particular blog post.

Finding 2Learn.ca after such a long absence makes me feel both ecstatic and ashamed at the same time. I'm ecstatic because I'm finally sharing this amazing resource with my readers, and I'm ashamed because I didn't mention it much earlier. I hope my readers will forgive me.  

There is a risk in mentioning this website to my readers. The risk is that you will no longer need to visit my blog to find resources for your SMART Board. Despite this risk, I encourage you to visit 2Learn.ca immediately and familiarize yourself with the website.

The above image is clickable. You can go directly to the resource section you want by clicking on the areas in the image.

E-Learning for Kids

The other non-profit organization that's dedicated to providing  high-quality interactive resources for the classroom is E-Learning for Kids. This site is so amazing that I have now mentioned it four times on my blog. It was also the very first resource I recommended on Teachers Love SMART Boards back on August 13, 2007. 

You can learn more about the amazing interactive course ware at E-Learning for Kids by reading this blog post or by simply going to E-Learning for Kids and start looking around. You'll be so glad you did!

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SMARTBoards and Ad-free Resources - Volume 1

I have received a great deal of response to my last blog post about interactive educational resources on the Internet that either have inappropriate advertisement or too much advertisement.

The next three blog posts (Volumes 1 through 3) will attempt to demonstrate that teachers have alternatives when using interactive resources from the Internet.

This volume will highlight three of my favorite websites that are provided by Governments agencies or Public Service Broadcasters.

LearnAlberta.ca Locate Resources

This could be the best resource I've ever seen for providing and finding interactive digital content on the Internet. Their filtering method for finding resources is absolutely brilliant.

In 30 seconds, I found 14 outstanding web resources for the following filter: Grade 3, Mathematics, Learner, English, Learners, Web, Game...

BBC Bitesize  

The BBC actually has a lot of fabulous content for kids and they have a great school portal for finding resources for the classroom. However, the Bitesize area is by far my favorite. Locating resources is very easy. You begin by selecting the age group of the child and then you choose either Math, English, or Science. Each subject area is then divided into areas of study. One of the great features of these resources is the ability to view the activities in full screen. Educators can even embed the game on their blog or website.

[KS1 - ages 4 to 7] [KS2 - ages 7 to 11] [KS3 - ages 11 to 14]

PBS Interactive Whiteboard Games

I've mentioned this site on my blog before but it's definitely worth repeating here. The PBS has really done a fantastic job of providing educational content for teachers and they've really set themselves apart with their "Interactive Whiteboard" resource page. 

It's very easy to find engaging resources on this site as well. All the resources are actually contained on a single web page but you can quickly jump the subject area you want and then you can click on the headers to sort activities by game, description, level, or topic.

Teachers should feel free to recommend these sites to their students as well as the parents.

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SMARTBoards and Advertisement in Education

 Yesterday on Twitter, I posted the following tweet...

I felt compelled to tweet this after looking at a site that I've used many times over the last four to five years. This site (which I really like) is created by an educator (who is amazing) and contains some fantastic resources for other teachers. Unfortunately, it is completely covered (devoured) with advertisements.

It's okay to make a profit...even in education. However, many teachers would like to share web resources with their students so they can use them at home and it really makes it difficult to recommend websites that have more advertising links than resource links.

Another example I can across is the newly revamped Nick Jr. website. My 3 year old loved the old Noggin site but ever since Noggin became Nick Jr., the website became unusable for him. Here's an screenshot of the "Diego's Snowboard Rescue" game on Nick Jr. showing advertisements for the Cayman Islands and how to get a free credit report.

As I said, making a profit in education is not the issue. However, when the method you use to make a profit interferes with the education process, then you might want to re-think your motives or your approach to sharing education resources with teachers.

This week, I will devote attention to some incredible websites that share hundreds of resources and are completely ad free.

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SMARTBoards and Scholastic Interactive Whiteboard Activities

For over 85 years, Scholastic, Inc. has worked very hard on achieving it's main objective of "helping children around the world to read and learn." 

For me, it's great to see a company that's been around so long realize that interactive whiteboards can be an extremely powerful tool for the classroom.

Not only have they created an incredible resource for teachers, students, and parents called Scholastic.com, they've created separate Interactive Whiteboard Activities section.

Scholastic also seems to realize that many teachers are still learning how to use resources effectively with an interactive whiteboard. To help these teachers, each of the listed activities contains a "See Whiteboard Tips" link that provides suggestions on using the activity in the SMART Board classroom. Teachers can also view a Teacher's Guide that will help teachers develop an entire lesson plan around the activity.

 

I believe this site provides a great model for schools to use when building a library of interactive resources for the SMART Board. 

I know you'll enjoy this amazing resource as much as I do.

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SMARTBoards and Science NetLinks Interactive Activities

The Science NetLinks website is an amazing website for Science teachers providing them with lessons covering a wide variety of topics and grade levels. The website is very easy to use and they even provide learning benchmarks for the lessons. The really great thing about these lessons is the interactive resources that are contained in each lesson plan.

I've gone through a number of these lessons and pulled out some of the interactive flash-based activities that work really well on an SMART Board. While I've made it very easy to access these resources, I encourage all teachers to utilize the entire lesson plans found on the Science NetLinks website.

Classify Activity - Classify different types of plants and animals. Simple activity and a lot of fun for earlier grades.

Forces - Try to determine what type of force caused the earth to change and how long it took to change it.

Gravity - Set your own thrust and angles to try to use gravity to land at your destination

Number Cruncher - How many moves will it take you to get to your target number by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. I love this activity!

Power Play - An activity that lets students figure out the tools necessary to build a machine to harness power. This is really cool.

Systems - Choose the correct organs in the correct systems to put Arnold back together.

Interactive Moon - Great activity to learn the phases of the moon.

Marble Mania - Great way to experiment with different probablity outcomes. You need a keyboard to type in some numbers but it's still an effective tool for the SMART Board

Antibiotic - You're the doctor and you have to figure out how to cure your patients before they go to the hospital.

I think I enjoy the Power Play activity the best. Let me know which one is your favorite!

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SMARTBoards and Biology Animations

In the last few days, I've been running across a lot of fantastic resources for Biology teachers. Since this strange phenomenon seems to be some undiscovered law of Science, I thought I would share what I have.

John Giannini's collection of Biology movies and animations.  Th is is a great  collection that should be shared with every Science teacher. A big thanks to Anne Marie for posting this resource on her blog.

Sumanas Animated Tuorials:  Sumanas Animated Tutorials: General Biology. Another wonderful resource that containing flash-based animations that include both step-though and narrated options for many of the resources.

No collection of sites would be complete without including the Freezeray.com. I've blogged about this wonderful site in the past. It contains a lot more than just Biology activities and the interactive nature of the activities are perfect for the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

I hope you'll share these resources with the other teachers in your school.

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Get SMART with SMART Boards Podcast - Episode 8

In the latest Get SMART with SMART Boards Podcast, Harvey and I explore and discuss the newest version of the Smart Notebook software, version 10.6. 

The new version of Notebook is available for both the PC and the Mac. In our lively discussion, we talk about the new tools in the Notebook toolbar and we discuss the amazing new addition to Notebook called "Transparent Notebook." 

As always, Harvey and I share one of our custom Notebook files for teachers to use in the classroom. Harvey's file is called "The Great Swami." This application is so much fun and easy to use and it can be adapted for any subject area or grade level. I thought it would be fun to share my Groundhog Day Activity file. The activities contained in this file include a prediction activity (will the groundhog see his shadow?), a puzzle, a labeling activity, and a 10 question trivia quiz on Punxsutawney Phil. 

The conclusion of the podcast contains some advice for using the SMART Board in the classroom including what to do if the SMART Board is mounted too high for your little ones to reach.

Please take a moment and respond to the Notebook Math Tools Add-On poll found on the podcast page.

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SMARTBoards and the Original Line Rider

I have no idea why I'm sharing the original Line Rider activity since it has has absolutely no educational value at all. However, it is quite fun to use on a SMART Board. 

My daughter was in hysterics for well over 1/2 hour the other day playing Line Rider with my office SMART Board. I wish she didn't enjoy watching the rider wipe out so much. Oh well, sometimes you just need to let go of a little stress.

I also don't know why I'm sharing a video of how to use Line Rider. I think it's because I didn't want to do my work today so I made work time into play time. 

Here's the direct link to the video in case you can't see it.

Enjoy!

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