Teachers Love SMART Boards

SMART Boards and the Amazing Magic 8 Ball

I would like to share with you an idea for how to use the technique for revealing correct answers that's found in the course Notebook Applications - The Magic Cat's Eye.

Using the exact same techniques used to build the Magic Cat's Eye, Valerie Byrnes thought it would be more fun to create a Magic 8 Ball that provided students with feedback on whether they are correct.

Here's a video that demonstrates how both the Magic Cat's Eye and the Magic 8 Ball will provide instantaneous feedback to students.

Here are some course testimonials for the course Notebook Applications - The Magic Cat's Eye:

Magic Cat's Eye is the coolest application I've seen and Jim makes it so easy to create yourself! I can't wait to WOW my students with it!
 ~Sue P.

What a treat! I love finding out about new techniques to include in my Notebook lessons that will WOW my students.
 ~Sherri F.

I'm still amazed every time I see the feedback magically appear in the Cat's Eyes. The step-by-step videos make it so easy. I already have ten ideas on how to use this! Thank you!
 ~James P.

This course was very beneficial. It shows you how to use the many features of the Smart board software. I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to become better acquainted how to use the Smart board.
 ~Denise T.

This course gives explicit steps in creating an amazing activity that will definitely engage the students.
 ~Martha V.

Jim is a very patient teacher - and gives excellent individualized help if you don't understand something. [smile]
 ~Jeni F.

The course is self-paced and teachers can take as long as they want to complete the course requirements. The course is only available on Teacher Online Training...the most effective, affordable and fun way to receive Smart Notebook 10 professional development! Enroll Now!

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SMART Boards and Free Images for Teachers

More and more great sites are popping up that allow teachers to search for and use quality images inside the classroom.

Using related images in Smart Notebook is a great way to engage students and provide a supporting visual aid to the subject matter.

Here are the sites I recommend for finding and downloading clip art, photographs, and drawings free of charge:

UVic's Language Teaching Clipart Library

edupics.com

Pics4Learning.com

 

EduPic Graphical Resource

 

MorgueFile

 

All of these sites should be placed on your district's website so teachers and students have access to free clip art, photographs, and drawings that can be used legally in an education environment!

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SMARTBoards and TrainTracker

I wasn't going to mention the site TrainTracker until I saw how completely engaged my 3 year old son became when he started using it.

At first, he just started putting any type of track on the screen and he wasn't overly concerned about where it went. However, when the train didn't go too far, he quicky picked up some spacial relationship skills and soon had the train chugging along the screen. His joy was immeasurable when he clicked "PLAY" and saw the train moving and making noise on the track that he built.

I'm sure TrainTracker will be a big hit in the early primary grades and for older special needs children. It's also one of those great websites to bookmark at home and have your young children learn how to use a mouse while building their own little adventure world.

Teachers could also utilize this site as a fun "memory helper" by drawing out a train track layout on the Smart Board and then see how well the students can recreate the layout using TrainTracker.

If you come up with some other educational uses for this great website, please post your ideas in the comment section!

Thank you Redbridge_ICT for finding this great resource!

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Notebook 10 Professional Development: Chalkboard Reveal

New Notebook 10 Professional Development at Teacher Online Training!

Notebook Application - Chalkboard Reveal
 
This course will guide participants in creating an interactive application for the SMART Board using Smart Notebook 10 that allows the user to touch a button to reveal individual steps in a multi-step process.

This course is self-paced and teachers can take as long as they need to complete the course objectives. Upon completion, teachers receive a Certificate of Completion for 90 minutes of Professional Development credit.

Participants will learn/reinforce how to set a default font and pen; how to add items from the Gallery, how to lock multiple objects at one time; how to clone objects; how to add pages to the Gallery; and how to make objects appear when a button is touched.

This is the most fun you'll ever have learning how to create engaging applications for your students! When you complete a course on Teacher Online Training, you not only increase your skills in using Notebook 10, you also have an authentic learning tool to use in the classroom!

Enroll in Notebook Application - Chalkboard Reveal

Here are some testimonials from the course Notebook Application - Turn on the Light

"I learn so much from Mr. Hollis' courses. The step-by-step instruction in small increments allows me to go back and forth from his instruction to my own notebook file so I don't get lost.  I heartily recommend this course."
  ~Mary S.

"Another fantastic course! It's great for most levels! Easy to follow instructions, go at your own pace in the comfort of your own home! What else could you ask for? I will definitely recommend this to my coworkers!"
~Nathalie R.

"Great lessons!  The step by step instructions are easy to follow. Thank you!"
  ~Sherri F.

"This course cost me time with my wife! Where did Saturday night go! I enjoyed this course thoroughly. While I knew many of the tasks you were explaining, the idea was great and I found myself listening to the audio rather than watching the video as I worked on my file. I am delighted with the finished product. Keep up the great work James."
  ~Andrew T.

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SMARTBoards and Studying in a "Flash"

Here's a wonderful resource for your SMART Board called Flashcard DB. This site allows teachers to build a set of flash cards in a matter of a few minutes or use one of the thousands pre-made flashcards. I actually created an account (optional if you want to build your own set of flashcards) and built my first set of literary review flashcards in under five minutes.

Once you've chosen the flashcard set you wish to use, you can go through the flashcards in review mode or study mode. If you go through in study mode, you're given a cool feedback page showing how many questions you answered correctly.

The flashcards work great on a SMART Board and provide teachers with another powerful new tool for the classroom. I should also mention that FlashcardDB allows you to print your flashcards and even formats the print page to make it very easy to cut the cards into even pieces.

A great way to start building a flashcard library is to have your students create their own set of flashcards. This would be such a great homework assignment and students are a lot more engaged in the learning process when they take a more active role in it. Once the students create a set of flashcards, you can export and import their work into your account in a few easy steps or just bookmark the links to their set of flashcards. Flashcard DB really makes exporting and importing the flashcard data easy!

Once again, don't forget to share this resource with the other teachers in your school. It's a winner!

Another big thanks to Mr. Byrne over at Free Technology for Teachers for sharing this wonderful resource with his readers!

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SMART Boards and an Amazing ESL Website

Sometimes I get frustrated when I find great websites for the SMART Board but they're blanketed in advertisements. To me it's very sad when people develop wonderful learning activities to share but feel it's okay to place huge advertisements on the same page that children will be using.

One solution is to find websites developed by educators who simply want to help students learn as opposed to making $50 a month through annoying product placement.

This morning I found a great website called Lauri's ESL Website developed by an educator with 35 years experience teaching ESL. Here name is Lauri Fried-Lee from the City College of San Francisco. Her website contains a wealth of ESL resources and most all of them work great on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard. I was especially impressed with the Listening Activities section of her website.

Pictured below are screenshots of two separate listening activities. In the first one, students click to hear a short conversation and then they answer a few questions about what they just heard. The second activity has students listen to a sentence and then place the correct picture in the box corresponding the word they hear in the sentence.

Lauri has many, many more activities similar to these that work great on the SMART Board and are very easy to use.

Thank you Lauri for creating such an outstanding "free" resource for ESL teachers and students! Your hard work is appreciated! If you like Lauri's website, why not send her a thank you email to let her know! 

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SMART Boards and Interactive Science and Engineering for Kids

Engineering Interact is a fantastic resource created by the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering.

 

Here's the description from their website:

Engineering Interact is a new and exciting free educational resource for primary school children aged 9 to 11. The resource provides fully interactive, engaging game environments and high-quality learning material tailored to the National Curriculum. Information about real world applications and cutting edge research motivates children and introduces them to the exciting subject of engineering.

The site contains interactive learning activities covering: light, sound, forces and motion, earth and beyond, and electricity.

Each area is broken down into multiple modules and each module contains an interactive learning activity, an interactive review activity, and a slide-show containing information about how the science is applied in the real world.

Teachers should check out the Teacher Information page that will help them utilize the resources more effectively.

This is one of those sites that really makes learning and teaching science a lot more fun and exciting, especially if you have an SMART Board in your classroom. Pass the word!

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SMART Boards and Fun "Bitesize" Activities from the BBC

I've mentioned the Bitesize activities from the BBC before but wanted to focus specifically on the KS1 (Key Stage 1) activities for children aged 5 to 7.

The KS1 Bitesize area contains both Math and Literacy interactive activities. The Math section contains 12 different activities and the Literacy section has nine. Each activity has three levels of difficulty: Medium, Hard, and Really Hard.

The graphics and audio on these activities are very professional and all the activities were developed with interactive whiteboards in mind so they all work great with the SMART Board. Student feedback is also very stimulating. After students touch on an answer, the activity responds with some fun animation and let's them know if they are correct. In the Kung-Fu Sentences activity (picture below), the character does a spinning Kung-Fu move after students select an answer. If the student is correct, the Kung-Fu Master flips the correct answer into place with his stick. It's pretty cool! 

 
The great thing about these activities is that they can be viewed full-screen to help make the activities more engaging. In addition, each activity has a corresponding worksheet. 

Teachers can also access KS2 and KS3 activities from the site. 

Please share this wonderful resource with the other teachers in your school. You'll soon be the "go to" person for finding great resources for your SMART Board!

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SMART Boards and a Collection of Interactive Review Games

My readers are keeping me busy this weekend but I've never had so much fun! I love creating custom applications in Notebook 10 that I know will be used in the classroom to help students learn in a fun and engaging manner.

As of this morning, I've created 20 custom Interactive Vocabulary Review Games for my readers. I'm doing this as a way of saying "thank you" for visiting Teachers Love SMART Boards as well as to promote the course Notebook Application - Interactive Review Game and demonstrate how easy it is to create your own interactive vocabulary review game.

Here's a new page on my blog that contains all the custom Interactive Review Games requested by my readers. Please feel free to use or share any of these files. If you want to request your own custom Interactive Review Game, just go over to the Interactive Review Game information page to watch the introductory video about how the game works. Then, click on the Request Custom Review Game link at the bottom of the page in the red bar. You'll need to enter 10-14 vocabulary words and a title. For example, if the vocabulary words come from the book "Holes," you would put "Holes, by Louis Sachar" as the title. You could also put something like "Chapter 14" or any title that's appropriate.

When I complete your interactive review game, I'll send you the file and also put a link to your file on my blog. Your custom puzzle should be posted within 24 hours.

This offer expires at midnight tonight so you'll have to hurry!

If you like the application, I hope you'll decide to enroll in the course. These courses are extremely affordable compared to other Professional Development courses and I offer a 100% money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied.

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SMART Boards and a Free Custom Vocabulary Review Game

Here's another free offer!

I'm trying to promote one of my Notebook 10 Professional Development courses called Notebook Applications - Interactive Review Game. This course trains teachers how to use Smart Notebook 10 by guiding participants step-by-step in building a fun and exciting vocabulary interactive review game. When you're completed with the course, you'll not only have a wonderful interactive application for the SMART Board, you'll also have a much greater command in using the Notebook 10 software.

To help promote the course and demonstrate how easy it is to create your own interactive vocabulary review game, I will personally create a customized Interactive Review Game in Notebook 10 for anyone who fills out a request.

To fill out a request, just go over to the Interactive Review Game information page to watch the introductory video about how the game works. Then, click on the Request Custom Review Game link at the bottom of the page in the red bar. You'll need to enter 10-14 vocabulary words and a title. For example, if the vocabulary words come from the book "Holes," you would put "Holes, by Louis Sachar" as the title. You could also put something like "Chapter 14" or any title that's appropriate. When I complete your interactive review game, I'll put a link to your file on my blog. Your custom puzzle should be posted within 24 hours.

If you like the application, I hope you'll decide to enroll in the course. These courses are extremely affordable compared to other Professional Development courses and I offer a 100% money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied.

I hope you'll take advantage of this offer. You'll have to hurry, this offer expires on Monday, March 16, 2009.

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