SMARTBoards and Pop My Balloon Please

I provide a lot of support for teachers using the new version of SMART Notebook and I'm often asked to explain how to use the wonderful tools found in the Lesson Activity Toolkit.

One of the newest tools is the Balloon Pop tool. The Balloon Pop tool is a flash object that looks like a balloon and makes a popping noise and disappears when it's touched. This is useful for displaying information hidden behind the Balloon Pop object. You can use it to reveal positive and negative feedback, correct answers, or any type of information you want to hide until the balloon is popped.

Here's a short tutorial that demonstrates how to use the Balloon Pop tool with your SMARTBoard interactive whiteboard.

If you have a good idea for how to use the Balloon Pop object, please share it by leaving a comment!

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Comments

[anne marie]

Hey Jim-
As usual an awesmone, very helpful video! My students love this activity- I have been using it to review basic math problems. They also love the Vortex- they think it is way cool the way it "eats" the words! Today I used the Anagram tool to review a lesson on fish. The kids loved moving the letter "bubbles" to spell the words.
Thanks for sharing!
anne marie

[Marie]

Jim,
You asked for other ways of using Balloon Pop....I have used it as one of the tools in my collection of Notebook pages to use for DPA (Daily Physical Activity). On that page, I simply named an exercise and covered it with a balloon. I just numbered the balloons so it wouldn't say "add text here". My heading was something like "Pop a balloon to choose the exercise we'll do 10 times". To keep the kids going, they all have to march on the spot between "pops" and the student who has a turn, chooses the next student to go, based on who is working hard.
Marie

[Marie]

How can I keep the balloons from a day to day project? Once they pop are they done or can they come backk the next time i open the file?

[Wendy]

I just used the balloon pop today. I created a MATHO review in a notebook, for my math classes because they have a test tomorrow. On the last page of the notebook I took all the answers that became the numbers for their game cards and covered them with balloons (I put the title MATHO on each balloon). I "popped" the balloons in random order until one or more students called "MATHO". I wanted to use this for each of my math classes and kept the balloons intact by closing the notebook and clicking do not save changes. Lots of fun!

[Laura]

I created a SMART file where spelling the letters of spelling words were hidden behind a balloon pop each. When the teacher says the word to spell, students could come up and spell the word outloud, and then click on each balloon to check their spelling.

I also am curious if you can save the balloons to reuse the file, or once they are popped they are just gone. Thanks! (Hope the marathon went well today :)

[Marilyn]

How can one change the colors of the balloons in Balloon Pop?

[Teachers Love SMART Boards]

The balloons change colors when you bring them in from the Gallery. I do not know of a way to change them once on the workspace.

[wasp.d@deerparkschools.org]

I want to use the balloon pop for attendance in the morning, I tried to double click on the edit arrows, but it is not doing anything for me and I can't write the students' names on the balloons. Can you please help me and let me know what I am doing wrong. I am sooo frustrated. Thanks!

[pcadwalder@shepherdisd.net]

I'm not seeing the video link to the balloon pop video and I would love to see it.

[Lindy]

Each time I edit a balloon it turns blue. All my balloons are now blue, which is not too exciting. Also, I cannot see the link to your tutorial video. Thanks.