Teachers Love SMART Boards

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 PBS KIDS Interactive Whiteboard Games

It's about time.

More education-based websites really need to follow the example of PBS KIDS and  begin building libraries of activities that are developed for teachers who will be using the activity on an Interactive Whiteboard like a SMART Board.

If any companies or developers are looking for what makes a good interactive whiteboard activity, I would be more than happy to send you my rubric for how I evaluate sites that I recommend. For example, activities should have a full screen mode or at least allow the teacher to increase the size of the activity to fill the whiteboard. 

The PBS KIDS Interactive Whiteboard Games collection is simply outstanding and definitely deserves the credit it gets. For reasons that should become obvious, it is also the #1 website shared by the teachers who I follow on Twitter. 

When you go to the site, you can click on the subject area and it will do a fun scroll to that particular subject area. In addition, you can also sort on title, description, level, topic, and audio by clicking on the corresponding word in the header for each subject.

Please share this wonderful resource with other teachers and even parents. They'll be glad you did.

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SMARTBoard Resources on Twitter

Hey teachers, I'll be the first person to admit that Twitter makes an awful first impression. Do we really care what Ashton Kutcher is having for breakfast? The very simple answer is "NO" (that's an emphatic "no" - sorry to all you Ashton Kutcher fans).

The point is, most people don't really care what I'm doing (writing this blog post) or what I had for breakfast (coffee and a Chewy Chocolate Chip granola bar). So why follow me or anyone else for that matter?

The answer is that I don't use Twitter to let people know what I'm doing. I use Twitter to connect with teachers. I Tweet about great Smartboard resources; I "Re-Tweet" (pass along someone else's Tweet) when someone shares something interesting; I update teachers with the status of my blog and my podcast; and I share information about Smartboard Professional Development. I occasionally Tweet something that I think is humorous to help with the daily stress of teaching.

Let's take a look at what resources were shared on Twitter this morning that relate to SMART Boards:

smartboards OR smartboard - Twitter Search

Just from this morning, here are the links that people shared about SMART Boards:

http://www.subtangent.com/maths/flash/measures1.swf

http://stujeopardy.com/

http://www.alsi-usa.com/ir_trial/mathspack1/angle/angle.html

http://www.mcq.org/momies/

I think you'll agree that Twitter, when used like this, can be a wonderful resource. So, what's the next step?

The next step is to set up a Twitter account and make sure you include a picture of yourself and some information in your bio. It's very difficult to get other people to follow you if you don't let them know who you are. You will then need to start following people so you get their Tweets to come to you. This is where you'll want to find some good people to follow.

You can begin by following these people who Tweet about education and Smartboards:

web20classroom AngelaMaiers dougpete coolcatteacher paulhami elemenous itrt KatStaton skipz langwitches cedpaine annemarie80 macharvey 

There are so many other great people to follow. Here are a few guides to help you get started:

A Teacher's Guide to Twitter

A Slideshow called Introduction to Twitter for Educators

I also recommend going to the SMARTBoards Twibe website and join the Twibe. A Twibe is a website that grabs all the Twitter messages related to a particular subject. The SMARTBoard Twibe will show you Tweets related to SMART Boards. It will also provide you a list of other teachers who are members of the Smartboard Twibe. You can find some great people to follow using this site. As of this blog post, there are over 250 members of the Smartboards Twibe. 

Good luck with your Twittering and don't forget to follow me on Twitter too.

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SMARTBoards and Childtopia

I've just spent the better part of an hour "playing" with an education site called Childtopia. The vast number of interactive resources makes this one of the very best sites available for the SMARTBoard on the Internet.

I played their new detective game, learned how to draw a lion, practiced placing my notes, and checked out my memory. The graphics and feedback are very appropriate for your students. You may have to wait a bit for some of the activities to load but that's to be expected with such outstanding graphics and interactivity.

I played around with about 10 activities and they all worked perfectly on the SMART Board. (Just a note to my U.S. readers, since this site was developed by a company in Spain, it uses Euros on it's money activities)

Here's a quick screenshot of their "games" page that includes literally hundreds of interactive games organized by learning area and age level. When you click on a learning area, it will highlight the games related to that area. When you click on the balloon, it will sort the games by age level.

Please share this site with everyone you know! It's quite simply one of the best resources I've ever seen!

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SMARTBoards and my 2008 Top Five List - Science

Here's my Top Five List for best SMART Board Science Resource for 2008

#5 - The Periodic Table of Videos from The University of Nottingham




#4 - Fantastic Contraption - Fun Online Physics Game




#3 - Science Up Close (Grade 1 - 6) from Harcourt, Inc.




#2 - Animals Creature Features from National Geographic Kids




#1 - Science Lab - Experiments and Projects to do at Home or in the Classroom from Schlumberger

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SMARTBoards and my 2008 Top Five List - Mathematics

Here's my Top Five List for best SMART Board Mathematics resource for 2008:

#5 - A Math Dictionary for Kids

#4 - Interactive Coordinate Plane (right-click to save to computer)

 

#3 - Math TV Video Word Problems

#2 - New Zealand Math's Animations

#1 - Algebasics

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SMARTBoards and the Secret Resource Pages

Pssst. I have a secret!

Did you know that I have some helpful SMARTBoard resource pages that contain listings of my favorite web resources all in one place?

While I don't necessarily keep these pages a secret since they are listed on the left side of every page, I don't often mention them.


Here are a few pages that might be helpful...

1. As a resource for one of my online courses, I placed all my favorite SMARTBoard web sites for 2008 on a separate page on my blog and I added a subject area column to help teachers find useful resources more easily.
2. In addition to the SMARTBoard 2008 Web Resources page, I also have a list of some of my favorite web resources on my SMARTBoard Website Listings page sorted alphabetically with subject and grade level information.
3. Lastly, I have a SMARTBoard Christmas Holiday Resource page that I'll be updating as we move closer to my favorite time of year. Please don't hesitate to send in any recommendations.

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SMARTBoards and TeacherLED

I recently sent a message to Danny Nicholson over at The Whiteboard Blog about the Teacher LED website to see if he had seen the site or knew the author.

The author is a teacher from the UK named Spencer Riley and he has created an outstanding collection of resources perfect for the SMARTBoard interactive resources.

Here is Danny's blog post about the TeacherLED website:

If you haven't seen it before, there are some great Flash resources on there. Mainly for Numeracy, but also a great little scrollable world map for geography.

There's also a nice Flash version of the Blockbusters game show. Very nice, and more interactive than my static version. You need to read out the questions yourself - but you could just use the glossary from any textbook or a list of subject keywords. The quiz can be adapted for any subject you want and would make a great lesson starter or plenary.

It's a great little resource, and well worth a visit: http://www.teacherled.com/

Spencer has also created a overview document for his resources. It's definitely worth checking out.

Thanks Danny for the great write-up and thank you Spencer for sharing such outstanding teacher resources! Don't forget to subscribe to Danny's great blog.

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SMARTBoards and Placing the U.S. States is a Capital Idea

One of the things I do on this site is pass along great interactive websites when I find them. Lately, I've been getting some great suggestions from the Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom group on Diigo.

Caroline O'Bannon passed along two outstanding websites for learning and practicing U.S. geography.

The first site is called State Capitals and it allows you to practice identifying the U.S. capitals using a highly engaging interactive site.

The second site is called Place the State and it challenges students to drag and drop states to the correct location on a map of the United States. It even calculates how far off you are.

The Place the States site comes from Sheppard Software and is just one of many great flash applications. This is one of those sites you'll have to bookmark and explore on your own since it has way too many great activities to list here. It appears all the activities work great on your SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

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SMARTBoards and Real Change You Can Use

A big thanks goes out to Anne Marie over at Talking SMARTBoards & Much More who found a great site called Cash Out that helps kids count money to make change. This application works great on the SMARTBoard since the kids can simply touch on the pictures to make change. I also like that it has a real word problem that needs to be solved.

Unfortunately, most of the interactive money games are poorly designed or require you to enter in numbers with your keyboard. My favorite money counter game called Discovering Coin Values at ToonUniversity is now reported by Google to be a risky site. I sent an email to the people at ToonUniversity to get more information.

Another fun site to help kids count money is called The Piggy Bank. This game works great on the SMART Board and requires a little more speed in counting money. It's kind of addictive so be careful.

Please share any other good money sites!

UPDATE: Kara submitted the Making Change game from Just Kids Games. I like this as much or better than Cash Out. Thanks Kara!

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