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Hey Group, I get so many great resources and activites from everyone, I thought I would give this a shot. I was able to secure a SmartBoard for this school year, and was pumped! My district has changed user agreements for their teachers, and I am no longer able to have access to their website. Does anyone have Smart Lessons or activities they would like to share? Thanks Liz

by Elizabeth Dalzell, Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:31 PM [i]Does anyone have Smart Lessons or activities they would like to share? [/i] Hi Liz, I've been using a Mimio interactive whiteboard, so the lessons I have are not specifically written to work on SmartBoard. The Mimioconnet website (where all the lesson plans are located) is also blocked from our school website, but I download the lessons to an external harddrive on my home computer and then plug the harddrive into my school computer to access the lessons during class. That might be a work around since you can't access the website from school. What grade level and discipline do you teach? I have several different interactive lesson ideas I'd be happy to share with you. Maureen

Maureen wrote, "I've been using a Mimio interactive whiteboard, so the lessons I have are not specifically written to work on SmartBoard." Hi Maureen, I am curious how the Mimio works with a traditional whiteboard. Can you explain? How much does it cost? Thanks for your help, Ruth

I get so many great resources and activites from everyone, I thought I would give this a shot. I was able to secure a SmartBoard for this school year, and was pumped! My district has changed user agreements for their teachers, and I am no longer able to have access to their website. Does anyone have Smart Lessons or activities they would like to share?

I have been fortunate enough to have a Smart Board for the past six years, and I truly believe it has revolutionized my ability to convey information to my students in an organized and multi-sensory fashion. I know can't imagine trying to teach on a daily basis without it. It also enables me to easily differentiate for my special needs students as I can easily print out the daily notes and even complete sets of my flipcharts for them to take away. I now use a Promethien Board with the ActivInspire software. But, even when I used PowerPoint, I would create a template that covered the basic aspects of my lesson. I find that my students appreciate it when they know the basic overall structure of the lesson. Thus the template begins with the day's date and daily topic; i.e. 'Heat Transfer'. I also list the indicator in terms of 'SWBAT explain the three basic ways in which heat can be transferred.' (SWBAT stands for 'Student will be able to '). I list the homework as well. This is on the screen when students first come in. The next page is the daily warm up, and they are expected to spend a few minutes doing that as I take attendance and check in homework. The next slide is a homework review, and I invite students to come to the board and write their answers as the rest of the students check their own work (we grade homework for completion rather than accuracy in my county). Then I use Discovery Streaming http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/ (but your school needs to have a subscription) to post a short video clip that focuses on our daily topic. After that we have a page of notes for my 8th grade students to copy (in 24 font on the screen- easy to read and again I copy it for my special needs students for whom writing is a challenge), and I do a 'lecture burst' to explain and host a class discussion about the topic. From there I show the daily plans and perhaps include a copy of the lab we will do that day and use the tools to underline and highlight important aspects. By creating a template to work with, I simply go through and add things to make it match the day's plans. I have never used 'canned- prepared' flipcharts as I find it more relevant to create my own based on our present unit of study and lessons...

Hi there! I just witnessed an awesome smart board activity in a classroom as a student teacher/observer. The teacher had all of the children's names on the bottom of the board and the student's used a tennis ball to move their name from one section to the "I'm here today" section. Since I have never seen a smart board I was amazed at how great it was!! Another great idea would be to use the same concept with a Venn diagram and science (or any interdiciplinary unit)vocabulary words, where students could use the tennis ball to move the words into their appropriate categories. Best of luck!!

Hey group, I currently teach Biology, Astronomy, Zoology (HS Level) and intergrated 7th grade science. Thanks for the webiste links, I have checked them out and am very excited to implement the information. Liz

Hello Readers, I only have a whiteboard in my middle school classroom - but I loved reading through Dorian's post! The ideas and strategies Dorian shared can easily be tweaked to meet my student's needs and used in my classroom. I'm reminded why I love browsing through all the thread discussions - I'm often rewarded with discoveries and insights when I least expect them! I'm curious Dorian if you save the "Warm-up" and note powerpoints from year to year. I'm at an alternative middle school and we have a large amount of students absent due to court, family upheaval and truancy. The daily powerpoints could easily be utilized by students who missed class. Sharing the powerpoint of the day and/or week with your SPED providers would support those educators when they prepare differentiated lessons or for test review. My weekends are always productive when I visit NSTA's Discussion Forums! Enjoy, Alyce

Ruth Hutson wrote on Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:10 AM: [i]Hi Maureen, I am curious how the Mimio works with a traditional whiteboard. Can you explain? How much does it cost? [/i] Hi Ruth, The Mimio is an "bar" that is about 18 inches long that mounts to your existing classroom whiteboard using suction cups. The bar works with a projector and a stylus pen to turn any whiteboard into an interactive whiteboard. You can connect the bar to your computer using either a USB cable or using a wireless connection kit (sold separately). Here is a link to the http://us.mimio.com/en-US.aspx '' target="_blank"> http://us.mimio.com/en-US.aspx ' target="_blank"> http://us.mimio.com/en-US.aspx " target="_blank">mimio website where you can get more information about the product line and the capabilities. The Mimio system costs significantly less than a SmartBoard, but you'd need to contact Mimio directly to find out the exact cost. The system is very portable so it can be shared by several teachers or moved from classroom to classroom if the teacher is changing rooms. Let me know if you have any more questions. Maureen

[i]Maureen wrote, “The Mimioconnet website (where all the lesson plans are located) is also blocked from our school website, but I download the lessons to an external harddrive on my home computer and then plug the harddrive into my school computer to access the lessons during class. That might be a work around since you can't access the website from school. What grade level and discipline do you teach? I have several different interactive lesson ideas I'd be happy to share with you.”[/i] Hi Maureen, I spoke with our technology coordinator about a Mimeo. I found out we have an older Mimeo that teachers can check out. He is going to let me try it since no one else is currently using it. I may be interested in looking at some of your resources. Also, what is the link for the Mimioconnect website? Thanks for your help, Ruth

This is a great idea to share Smart activities. I have found designing the Smart flipboard lesson's to be very time intensive. Has anyone tried the hand held response devices that can be used with a Smart board?

If you open the Gallery tab on the side of the SMART board software (when you have notebook open)there is a SMARTexchange link to click on. You can search the exchange for ideas that other people have created and posted. Many of these can be used the way they are but others can be edited to fit your particular topic. Also look at the Toolkit for example activities and games that are already created. You can also use those as a springboard for your own activities. I hope this helps!

I have started posting all of my smartboard lessons on my website. Most for genetics are up, I'm still working on fixing chemistry and the rest of bio. You can find them under "biology" resources at www.stuckonscience.org. ;)

I have started posting all of my smartboard lessons on my website. Most for genetics are up, I'm still working on fixing chemistry and the rest of bio. You can find them under "biology" resources at www.stuckonscience.org. ;)

Brittany, kudos to you on your amazing website. I loved visiting it and seeing how you organized it. I was wondering if you used I-Web from the Mac to create it or some other software or freeware. Since I am not as technologically advanced as you, how many hours, days, or weeks(years??) did you spend creating your masterpiece? The Smartboard lessons are just one of many wonderful resources that you have made available to other teachers. I am going to share your site with pre-service teachers! Thank you.

I am so glad this topic got posted, I was thinking about it a lot the other day when I went to power my board up and wished there were other Science teachers to communicate with for ideas. I will begin by saying I am not only a "techno geek", but a technology addict. I love electronics that engage students in meaningful learning, enhancement of a topic and makes my job more efficient to boot. I have two separate boards, one is from Smart and is the smaller portable size, the second is the large Starboard from Hitachi. While they both operate similarly, I found the Starboard to be more durable in the middle school classroom because the electronics are not located right behind the writing surface. Rather, they are located in the trim around the outside of the board. This way, if the board gets run into, bumped or otherwise damaged or scratched, it is still usable. The Smart components are behind the actual writing surface and can be damaged through incidental contact. There are quite a few schools and teachers investing in the technology. One of the biggest considerations I did not make initially was the placement of the projector, hence, I now have two boards. I would strongly advise whichever brand you choose, you invest in the short throw projector which allows the projector to be higher than the body writing on the screen. It is located above the board and is projected downward. While there is still some shadowing, it is nothing compared to having the projector at your back on a cart which blocks the projection from the projector. Once you step away it is fine, but this does take away from the presentation. With both of my boards I purchased the hand held tablets, the Airliner is the Smartboard version. Hitachi has their own as well called the Hitachi Starboard Tablet. About a year ago I saw some software modeled with the Hitachi boards called Easiteach. Easiteach allows you to create from scratch some really cool presentations that can saved, modified and shared with relative ease. The site for the software is http://www.easiteach.com/eng/. On the website there are some videos, ideas, and information as well as a trial version of the program. With Easiteach, there are even some bundles of curriculum items already made called toolbars created by subject and grade level. I had the opportunity to see a wide variety of the toolbars at a seminar and was impressed with how adaptable the program was. On Amazon you can purchase the iMM Pad Multimedia Tablet that works with all of the whiteboards I've tried, bundled with the Easiteach software. In one of the posts a question was asked about the classroom response system bundled with the Interactive Whiteboards. I chose a system called Qwizdom. They are not linked to any of the interactive boards directly and can be run quite efficiently from a laptop or desktop computer. I have used them in my classroom for the past 6 years. There are only two things in my classroom I would not teach without, my laptop and my Qwizdom's. Everyday my students come in, pick up their remote, log in, and attendance is taken directly from the program. My "Do Now" is on the interactive board or screen, they solve the given problem and send their response either numerically (most often), multiple choice, true/false, yes/no, sequenced, or rating scale. Their response is recorded automatically into the program, with them receiving immediate feedback as to whether they were correct or incorrect. The program also keeps track of their scored responses. I can then download a report that tells me who got which answer correct, how they responded and then tablulates their number correct out of the total number possible giving me a percent as well. A nice feature is I can see how far along students are as they are sending their responses, who answered which question correctly, and how many in the class got the correct response. I can save the information to generate a variety of report types. As a classroom tool, I can pose any of the above type of questions during classtime, on the fly, during a discussion to check for student understanding. I don't have to wait to go home or plan time to score papers to see if my kids got what I was teaching them. I know immediately where my kids are. This year I have 5 preps, and believe me, Qwizdom has been a huge timesaver. There is a learning curve to becoming proficient with the software, but the technical support is exemplary. You dial an 800 number and are immediately connected with a live person that will talk you through the process of how to make the program do what you want it to, from creation of teaching slides, answer keys or the generation of reports. If tech support can't get you going on the phone, you also have the option to allow them to access your computer screen through GoToMeeting. You can find out more about Qwizdom through http://qwizdom.com/. As you can see I love technology.

I'm curious Dorian if you save the 'Warm-up' and note powerpoints from year to year. I'm at an alternative middle school and we have a large amount of students absent due to court, family upheaval and truancy. The daily powerpoints could easily be utilized by students who missed class.

I do save the Flipcharts- as we call them when using the Promethien Board- for a number of reasons. I share them with the two other teachers who teach the same content as me, and we often tweak them as we teach and find out what worked well and what might be left out. If students are absent, they can easily access these files and see what they missed. I also make copies of the flipcharts for the two para-educators who work in my class so they have a running record of what we are working on. Sometimes they will make copies for the students with special needs to assist them with retaining the content presented. The funny thing is that each year, I always make new flipcharts. I will often pull some information from an old flipchart, but each year my students differ and there are always new resources to incorporate.

I am so intrigued with the various ways us educators use technology and always amazed by what a dedicated group of professionals my fellow teachers are!

I'm curious Dorian if you save the 'Warm-up' and note powerpoints from year to year. I'm at an alternative middle school and we have a large amount of students absent due to court, family upheaval and truancy. The daily powerpoints could easily be utilized by students who missed class.

I do save the Flipcharts- as we call them when using the Promethien Board- for a number of reasons. I share them with the two other teachers who teach the same content as me, and we often tweak them as we teach and find out what worked well and what might be left out. If students are absent, they can easily access these files and see what they missed. I also make copies of the flipcharts for the two para-educators who work in my class so they have a running record of what we are working on. Sometimes they will make copies for the students with special needs to assist them with retaining the content presented. The funny thing is that each year, I always make new flipcharts. I will often pull some information from an old flipchart, but each year my students differ and there are always new resources to incorporate.

I am so intrigued with the various ways us educators use technology and always amazed by what a dedicated group of professionals my fellow teachers are!