Teachers Love SMART Boards

SMART Boards and YouTube

Want a fun way to find, display, and watch YouTube videos? Check out TimeTube! After you do your search, you can even change the way the information is displayed. The application works great with the Smartboard interactive whiteboard.

Here's a screen shot of my search for Smartboard videos. Can you find any of mine?:


Have fun with this one! Thank you Tumbl'n Teachers (glad you're back) for sharing this great resource.

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SMART Boards and More Flash Games

Hey Jim! How about some more of those fun little flash games you used to give away. I promise I'll use them strictly for educational use. :o)

Here are two games that work great with a Smartboard interactive whiteboard:

1. 3DReversi - Here's a fun version of the strategy game that has two levels of play.


2. Monster Memory - You have to be quick to win this one. It has a timer!


You should be able to right-click an download these flash games to your computer.

Enjoy, and remember to use these games for educational use only.

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SMART Boards and Grammar Ninja Update

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about The Grammar Ninja flash application that you can download and use with your Smartboard interactive whiteboard. Click here to read about this wonderful application.

The developer of the application KWarp (Greg) recently sent me an update to Grammar Ninja with the following comment:

I've updated the game so that you get more feedback from the blue box when adding your own sentences. Remember, if you add 10 or more sentences of the same difficulty, it will erase the default ones.

Grammar Ninja allows you to enter your own sentences using the Sentence Creator for Windows.exe application. Please follow the instructions in the read me files or watch my video below to make sure you understand how to use your own sentences. I honestly believe that the Sentence Creator application is as powerful a tool for learning as is the Grammar Ninja application.

Video on Setting up Grammar Ninja:

You can download the zip files containing the necessary files here.

Thanks for the update Greg!

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SMARTBoards and Educational Blogs

I know I've expressed how much I enjoy working on my Teachers Love SMART Boards blog and I'm very excited that a number of you have expressed interest in starting up your very own blog. For everyone who has sent me an email, I will be replying very soon and hopefully we can all work together to learn more about creating, maintaining, and updating educational blogs.

I have some great ideas on how we can all share our ideas and collaborate on creating blogs so please send an email to jim@teacherslovesmartboards.com if you want to join in. It's all free.

If some of you would like to begin right away and have never created a blog before, I have written a post called Creating Your First Blog on my Digital Learning Environments Blog. I also have some other posts that discuss how to create educational content. I believe it is the sharing of educational content that gives a blog its power!

It's Friday so you should probably leave with a smile on your face.



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SMARTBoards and Interactive Websites for Math & Science

I really like this idea of putting website resources in a fun little slideshow to share with other people. Here Karen Brooks puts together a slideshow that has a whole bunch of cool websites with interactive activities for Math and Science.

Please comment back on which one you like the best. I really like the Science website Alliant Energy Kids that has some great learning resources and good interactive review activities that are perfect for the SMART Board.

| View | Upload your own

Thanks for sharing Karen!

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SMARTBoards and Sharing Resources

Hello!

I get so excited when people leave comments or send emails telling me about how much they enjoy my Teachers Love SMART Boards blog. I take great pride in finding and sharing resources for teachers to use with their SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

I also take great pride in the fact that there are no advertisements and no promotions on the site. This site is about sharing and caring, not revenue or recognition. It's purpose is to help teachers use the SMART Board to increase learning. This site is also about inspiring other educators to share their expertise. Many teachers are finishing the school year and are about ready to take their well-deserved Summer break. Why not commit to creating your very own educational blog this Summer?

If you're interested in learning how to create your own educational blog this Summer, send me an email at jim@teacherslovesmartboards.com

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SMART Boards and The Magic Pen Game

I get requests all the time for more interactive activities that are not only fun but actually make the kids think. In my search for new and exciting web applications for the classroom, I always start at Danny Nicholson's The Whiteboard Blog. In my book, this is the best blog for teachers who use an interactive whiteboard in the classroom.

Danny has found an outstanding website for Science class called The Magic Pen Game. This game is amazing. I simply cannot stop playing it. The objective is to draw objects on the screen to try to move a red ball around so it hits various red flags that are located on the screen. You draw objects like ramps and balls and hinges where you determine where to place the fulcrum. All objects behave as if they exist in our physical world.

If you're a Science teacher and your students have access to a computer or an interactive whiteboard, quit reading my blog and head over to The Magic Pen.

In the example above, the object is for the red ball to hit the red flag. I drew two ramps and two circles. The green circle is falling and should hit the orange circle so it rolls onto the ramp and then it should hit the red ball which should roll down the orange ramp and hit the red flag. There are a lot of other ways to get the red ball to hit the red flag by drawing objects on the screen.

Enjoy!

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SMART Board and the Set Game

Why not have the Set Game displayed on the SMART Board for kids to solve before they start class. This would motivate kids to get into class on time. You could even have a Set Game contest or challenge students to beat your best time.

The Set Daily Puzzle is very easy to use on the SMART Board and it has a different puzzle each day. Here's a screen shot:

You need to find all six sets. Here is the solution to the one above:

The final set is almost completed. Notice the single purple striped oval and the double green striped diamond are selected. Can you guess the which one completes the set? Hint: Since the other two are striped, it would have to be striped; since the other two are different colors, it would have to be different; since the other two are different numbers, it would have to be different. Since the other two are different shapes, it would have to be different. In this case we're looking for a striped, red, triple, squiggly.

As you can see, there are instructions for learning how to play. It gets addicting so watch out! If you ever get under a minute, let me know. My best time is 46 seconds. Getting under a minute is really really good!

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SMART Boards and MyStudiyo

I've been playing around with some quiz generators that work well with the SMART Board and help teachers gather results. I'm very impressed with MyStudiyo and think it has a lot of potential for educators. This looks to be another outstanding Web 2.0 application!

Please help me evaluate this application further by taking my five (5) question quiz.

Let me know what you think by commenting on this post!

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SMART Boards and Special Education

If you're a SMART Board user, make sure you subscribe to the blog called Talking SMARTBoards & Much More! My friend Anne Marie always has some great ideas!
 

Here are Anne Marie's top Special Education picks:

SpEd Resources | Talking SMARTBoards & Much More! via kwout

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SMART Board Lesson Podcast and Jigzone

As always, Ben and Joan have produced another great episode of their SMARTBoard Lesson Podcast. This week's episode (#125) highlights a lesson about the Bernoulli Principle. They also have a very short survey to help gather some information to make their podcast even better. It only takes a few minutes to complete so please help Ben and Joan out if you can.

One of the people who called into the show mentioned a fun website that works great with the SMART Board. It's called Jigzone and it allows you to create a jigsaw puzzle from pictures that you upload. There are a lot of ways to use this for educational purposes. For example, here is a graphic I created using a graphic editor (PhotoFiltre is good free graphic editor).

I can use Jigzone to upload this photo and then create a fun jigsaw puzzle for kids to put together on the SMART Board. When they're done, they have to tell the class which side has the correct answer.

Here's the puzzle (click on it to start) created from Jigzone and embedded here in my blog. You can use the controls on the left to change the number of pieces and automatically solve the puzzle:

Enjoy!

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SMART Boards and Digital Learning Environments Revisited

Just a reminder to check out the new Digital Learning Environment website and to register for the next Digital Learning Environments Event being held in Albany NY on May 22 if you live in the area.

I attended the last event in Chicago and was extremely impressed with all the break out sessions. Each session provided teachers with hands-on examples of how to integrate technology into the classroom. I was also pleasantly surprised at the end of the event when I won a Senteo Interactive Response System for the district I work for. I can't wait to introduce it into the classroom!

Also, please check out my latest post on using blogs to share classroom information using the Internet. It introduces teachers to blogs and provides some great examples of how other teachers are using blogs to help students learn.

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SMART Board versus the Blob

Get ready to have some fun because the Blobs are back and they're more fun than ever!

 

Blobs 2 is the perfect logic game for your SMART Board interactive whiteboard. This game is so addicting and it's a perfect companion for a Friday afternoon. (You can right-click and download the game to your computer or you can just click on the link to play inside your browser.)

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SMART Boards and Grammar Ninja

I am so excited to about this post. I have found a great application called Grammar Ninja that really works great with the SMART Board interactive whiteboard. One reason this would be a great game to introduce to your students is because it was developed by Greg Lieberman who developed the game as part of High School Independent Study Program in Videogame Design.

You can check out the game by going to Greg's Grammar Ninja website. However, playing the game is not where the real educational value comes in. Greg has also developed a way to add your own sentences to the game by typing in a sentence and then applying the correct parts of speech to each word. I think this is where the real learning takes place. Check out a screen shot of applying the correct parts of speech:

The application that creates new sentences also works great with a SMART Board since you simply drag and drop the correct parts of speech over each word. When you're done, you simply paste the code that's given to you in file on your hard drive.

Here's a video showing how to download and use the Grammar Ninja application. I honestly believe that the best educational use for this would be to let the students create their own Grammar Ninja sentences and then play Grammar Ninja using their sentences. Here is the link to the zip file that contains all of the files you see in the video.

                             

Please share this wonderful application with your Language Arts or ELL instructors. A big thank you to Greg for creating such a fun education tool. Keep up the great work!

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SMART Board Notebook Tip: Reveal Correct Answers

Here is video demonstration on how to use Smart Notebook to create a move-and-reveal effect for displaying correct answers and hiding incorrect answers.

                             

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SMART Boards and that Addictive Bubblewrap

Here's a fun little flash file from one of my Twitter friends that has absolutely no educational value to it unless you're that super-creative teacher that can take anything and make it into a learning experience.

If you download the file (by using your right-click menu), you can run it from your browser or you can bring it into your Notebook software (Insert / Flash File) and save it in your gallery.

If you create an authentic learning experience using this file, let us know!

Have a great weekend!

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