Teachers Love SMART Boards

Smartboards and the Random Student Picker

Here's a peek at the new course on Teacher Online Training that guides teachers in building their own custom random student picker using Smart Notebook 10. It's another great tool for your SMART Board.

The course is scheduled to be released Monday, June 15, 2009

Sharing is Caring!

SMART Notebook Video Tutorial Library Additions

I just want to let my readers know that I've added a number of new complimentary video tutorials to the Notebook Video Tutorial library over on Teacher Online Training.

Naming and Moving Pages in Notebook

This video tutorial demonstrates how to add a descriptive name to the pages inside a Notebook file and how to move the pages around.

(The Notebook file used in this tutorial was created using the techniques from the course The Magic Cat's Eye.)

Using the Screen Capture Tool

This video tutorial demonstrates how to use the screen capture tool in Smart Notebook. It also provides a tip for keeping the size of the screen capture the same size as your original image.

(If you've ever experienced the problem of your screen capture images being larger than your original image, you'll want to check this out.)

I've also added a new video for subscribers only that demonstrates how to blend two pictures together. Very cool.

This is a perfect time for Teachers Love SMART Boards readers to try out Teacher Online Training.  Just use the monthly discount code "TLSB" (without the quotations) to get 33% off a one-month subscription. That's just $9.97 for unlimited access to all the courses on Teacher Online Training including the most popular course The Magic Cat's Eye. We offer a 100% Money-Back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied. Please hurry, this offer expires on June 1, 2009.

Please visit the Educator Subscription Center to apply your discount code.

I hope you enjoy the video tutorials!

Sharing is Caring!

SMARTBoards and Customizing the Notebook Toolbar

Here's another teacher-requested video tutorial from Teacher Online Training. This video tutorial demonstrates how to customize the Smart Notebook Toolbar quickly and easily.

Click Here if the video is not displayed.

You can find more video tutorials as well as the best Notebook training anywhere over at Teacher Online Training. Teacher Online Training offers the most effective and affordable Professional Development for teachers and schools who utilize SMART Boards in the classroom. 

Teacher Online Training is currently offering substantial discounts for subscribing. For more information, you can go to the Educator Subscription Center for more information. If you do decide to try it out, don't forget to check out the Special Offers page to request a 50% discount for your first month subscription.

There is a 100% money-back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied and you can cancel at any time. If you're not sure if this is for you, why not take a complimentary course that will teach you an amazing technique for revealing hidden information. 

---

I've been working very hard to make Teacher Online Training the best Smart Notebook training site for teachers. I hope you'll give it a try and let me know what else I can do to help teachers use the SMART Board more effectively.

Sharing is Caring!

SMART Boards and the Floating Mouse

Did you know you could turn your finger into a hovering mouse when using the SMART Board? This feature allows you to take advantage of websites that display various information when you move your mouse around the computer screen.

Here's a teacher-requested video tutorial that shows you how to take advantage of the Floating Mouse feature of your SMART Board.

Click here to go directly to the video.

We have more teacher-requested videos on the new Teacher Online Training Learning Management System. If you're not already a subscriber, then you're missing out on the best Smart Notebook 10 training available anywhere!

Teacher Online Training is currently offering substantial discounts for subscribing. You can request a discount coupon on the Special Offers page and then go to the Educator Subscription Center and use it to register. No worries! There is a 100% money-back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied.

If you're not sure if this is for you, why not take a complimentary course that will teach you an amazing technique for revealing hidden information.

Sharing is Caring!

SMART Boards and a Fun Technique for Revealing Information

Want to learn a fun and exciting technique for expanding text and revealing hidden information?

I've just developed a short-course for Notebook 10 that walks you step-by-step through the process of creating an application that will magically reveal The Student of the Day.

Oh, by the way, this course is free!

It's just my way of saying "thank you" to everyone for visiting my blog, Teachers Love SMART Boards, and my Notebook 10 training site, Teacher Online Training.

Teachers can use this simple but powerful technique on their SMART Board in a myriad of ways to dramatically reveal any information to the students.

While this technique is easy to learn, there is a secret to making the words magically expand right in front of your eyes. This technique is sure to "WOW" even the most experienced Notebook user.

(Note: This technique is very different from the technique described in the course Notebook Application - The Magic Cat's Eye. The technique in The Magic Cat's Eye is much more powerful and versatile).

This course contains nine short video tutorials that guide participants in creating their hands-on assignment. Participants who successfully meet the course objectives receive a Certificate of Completion for 45 Professional Development minutes. One of the great thing about the courses is the Forum area where teachers share their ideas for how to use what they learned during the course. For example, this technique could also be used as a fun way to introduce The Word of the Day.

To enroll in this course, just click on the course Notebook Technique - Student of the Day over at Teacher Online Training (the course is listed toward the bottom of the page). After you log in, you will be asked if you want to enroll in the course and then you will be taken directly to the course. If you do not already have an account on Teacher Online Training, you can create a free account in a few easy steps.

Watch the introductory video for Notebook Technique - Student of the Day

If you have any questions about Teacher Online Training, including how to sign up your school up for a personalized Learning Management System containing all the courses found on my site, please send me an email at jim@teacheronlinetraining.com.

Finally, high-quality Professional Development for teachers at affordable prices!

Sharing is Caring!

Notebook Application: The Magic Cat's Eye

I get really excited when I create a new course over at Teacher Online Training. My latest Notebook 10 course offering guides participants through the creation of an application for the SMART Board called The Magic Cat's Eye.

This application will amaze even the most experienced Notebook user. The course is self-paced and teachers do not need any prior experience in using Notebook 10. Teachers simply watch a series of short video tutorials and then apply what they learn to their own Notebook file. Before they know it, they've created an fun and exciting application that can be used immediately inside the classroom!

Course Description:

This course will guide participants through the process of creating an authentic multi-page interactive application in Smart Notebook 10.

Users will build a fun review game called The Magic Cat's Eye that will magically reveal to the student whether or not their answer to a question is correct. This course uses an innovative technique that will amaze and bewilder even the most advanced Smart Notebook user. Best of all, the technique is very easy to apply and participants use only the tools found in the standard Notebook 10 toolbar.

This course contains 24 short video tutorials and is divided into five sections that will guide the user through the entire process of building the multi-page interactive application.

In addition to learning how to incorporate the Magic Cat's Eye technique, participants will learn how to create and apply a custom Theme; create custom backgrounds, use the Screen Capture tool; apply advanced locking techniques; save pages to the Gallery; customize the Notebook Toolbar, create custom buttons, and apply links to and from each page.

This course will also reinforce grouping objects, naming pages, setting default fonts, and editing objects.

Why spend hundreds of dollars on ineffective Professional Development when you can spend a fraction of that over at Teacher Online Training.

For a limited time, the Magic Cat's Eye course is available for only $6.95. I also offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied with the course!

Here's an introduction video for the Magic Cat's Eye course:

No other Professional Development system comes close to providing teachers with the training they need to effectively use Smart Notebook 10.

As learners, we learn best by doing and that's exactly what Teacher Online Training does. It provides a proven method of learning how to use Smart Notebook 10 that's fun, effective, and best of all, extremely affordable.

Teacher Online Training was development specifically to accommodate the busy teacher. All courses are self-paced and teachers can take as long as they need to complete the courses at the comfort of their own computer. Teachers are provided with support and feedback on all their activities and each course contains a community forum where teachers can share ideas and reflect about how to use the applications inside the classroom. When teachers complete a course, they receive a Certificate of Completion for each course that can be used for Professional Development credit.

Sharing is Caring!

Smart Notebook 10 Professional Development Special Offer

You too can Turn on the Light to help your students learn!

Teacher Online Training provides an effective, innovative, and fun method of learning how to use Smart Notebook 10.  All the courses are self-paced and are designed to accommodate a teacher's busy schedule.

Teachers learn how to use Notebook by creating authentic learning tools that can be applied immediately to the classroom to help engage the students. No more boring tutorials that don't carry over to the classroom and no more forgetting what you learned during a five hour workshop.

Teacher Online Training uses short video tutorials, expert feedback, community forums, self-assessments, and hands-on activities to guide participants in using Notebook more effectively. In addition, teachers can review the tutorials as many times as necessary and they can take as long as they want to complete the courses. Once teachers meet the course objectives, they receive a Certificate of Completion.

Here are the testimonials from the latest course entitled Notebook Applications - Turn On the Light which guides participants in creating a multi-page interactive review activity for the SmartBoard.

---

impressive and very helpful...thank you
   
It is a great and very exciting course to learn new ideas and new features of notebook 10. After taking this course so many ideas came to my mind to use in my ESL class. If you have not signed up for this course, please do so as it will help you in creating exciting lessons for your students. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

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!

Excellent techniques, folks! Well worth the time to learn it. Very impressive.

Great lessons!  The step by step instructions are easy to follow.  Thank you!

I always learn a new skill through your courses. As in the past your directions were easy to follow and application to a new Notebook lesson will go smoothly. I really appreciated learning to add pages and objects into the Gallery into My Content. I had tried this before but always seems to do it the hard way. Also learning the skill of linking pages within the application will be very useful for other applications. I have recommend your courses to several teachers in my elementary building and they have been very happy with the ease of completion, no matter their Notebook 10 skill level.

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.

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.

This course is awesome--a definite A+.  Not only do you learn to create an exciting activity for your classroom but you also learn time-saving steps such as saving pictures and templates to your gallery. What else can I say but AMAZING!  Thanks for offering such outstanding courses and presenting them in such a way that anyone can understand.

This is a great activity.  I am very excited to try it out on my class.  It can be adapted to all subject areas and will make a great review tool!

This is going to be such a fun technique to use in the classroom. I can think of so many different ways to use Turn on the Light with word attach, reading strategies and vocabulary. The students will love using the flashlight.

When I watched the lessons and just took notes, I thought "Oh, man, I will NEVER be able to do that!!  But if you just watch each segment and follow directions it really is de LIGHT ful!!  I would recommend this to everyone.  My principal and assistant principal are anxious for me to show the other teachers!  So am I!!   Smartboards are made for more than pre-planned games!!  I plan to use Shine the Light to practice for "The Big Test"!  Thanks so much!!!

---

Participants who successfully complete the Turn On the Light course receive a  Certificate of Completion worth 180 minutes of Professional Development credit.

Currently, I'm offering all my courses at a reduced price to help bring exposure to my Learning Management System. The course fee for the Turn On the Light application is only $6.95 and it comes with a 100% money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied.

I'm very excited about this new Professional Development program at Teacher Online Training. It's been in research and development for over a year (as part of an EdTech grant) and I believe it offers the very best (and most affordable) professional development available.

Here's a Sneak Peak at my latest course scheduled to be released this week. Anyone who enrolls in the Turn On The Light course before March 7, 2009 will be automatically enrolled in the Magic Cat's Eye course free of charge (does not include people who received free enrollments):

I left my role as a technology integration specialist, teacher, and technology coordinator to develop this new system so teachers could get the professional development they need without all the hassles. I have a degree in Computer Science, a minor in Mathematics, and a Masters in Education specializing in Technology & Curriculum. It was time I put my experience and education to good use!

 Sharing is Caring!

SMART Notebook Challenge #12 Solution - Watch This

This is the solution to Challenge #12 called "Watch This." This challenge was to encourage teachers to utilize the new Page Recorder feature of Notebook 10.

For this week's challenge, I demonstrated how the Page Recorder could be used to solve an anagram. The submissions for this week's challenge used it in a variety of ways including solving a pattern, showing number examples, demonstrating proper cursive writing, showing solution to a sorting activity, and solving a Math problem.

Another great feature of the Page Recorder is the ability to save your recorded page in the Gallery. This allows teachers to build an extensive library of animated demonstrations that can be used over and over again.

Here's the solution video of how I used the Page Recorder:

I would like to thank all the people who submitted entries this week. Your ideas were inspiring! This week's Gold Medal winner is Sarah Snyder and the Silver Medal winner is Janetta Garton. Congratulations!

If you have difficulties viewing the video, you can watch it on YouTube.

Sharing is Caring!

SMART Notebook Challenge #11 - Random Number (Solution)

I hope you'll be as amazed as I was with the submissions for this week's challenge - Random Number. The challenge was to create a custom random number generator that you could use inside the classroom using your SMART Board interactive whiteboard. 

I created this challenge as a way to encourage teachers to modify Gallery objects to fit the needs of the lesson. What I received in response to this challenge far exceeded my expectations. 

The Gold Medal winner this week is Jennifer Gibson and the Silver Medal winner is Hanse Madsen. Congratulations!!! Keep reading for how you can see both Jennifer and Hanse's random number generator submissions!

Because I received so many amazing solutions to this challenge, I decided to create an entire Gallery Collection of the random number generators and share it with my readers.

Here's the solutions video that also highlights some of the submissions for this challenge:

You can download the Random Number Gallery here. When you open the file, it should import the Gallery into your My Content folder. You can also go to your My Content folder in the Gallery and right-click on the folder and then select "Add to My Content." 

If you like any of the custom generators, please leave a comment in the comment area for this post and let that person know. The page title of each random number generator contains the name of the person who submitted that entry.

Sharing is Caring!

SMARTBoards and Solutions for Evenly Spacing Objects

This is the solution for Challenge #9: Precise Object Spacing. This was definitely a fun challenge and I received some outstanding submissions for completing it.

Ann White is this week's extreme challenge winner and she definitely deserves the title "Faster than the Master" (or at least, as fast as the master) for completing the challenge in approximately 19 seconds.

I had two techniques that I used to complete this challenge. The first one was very similar to Ann's technique. It used a spacer object and the alignment guides to evenly space objects on a page. Ann improved on my idea in the sense that she used a rectangle instead of a line as her spacer object. Another submission cloned one of the smiley faces, resized it and used it as the spacer object. Ingenious!

Here's Ann's submission video.

My second technique used an spacer object that I created and placed inside the Gallery. The object consisted of 6 evenly sized rectangles that were grouped together. My technique was to drag the object to the work area, expand it according to how much space I wanted in between my objects, ungroup it back into six rectangles and then use the alignment guides to set my objects on the page. Using this technique, I was also able to evenly space my objects in approximately 19 seconds.

Here's a video of using a spacer object consisting of rectangles

I think the best and easiest technique is the one Ann uses.

Sharing is Caring!