Mister Mak's Learning 2.0

Hi Everybody,

I have listed some great resources below to help you if you intend on doing any SMART board planning over the summer. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

FREE SMART Conference

Houston Regional SMART User Conference — August 3, 2011

Where: Katy ISD, Morton Ranch High School (Map)

When: August 3, 2011 8:30 am – 3:00 pm (Check-in starts at 8:00 am)

Hosted by: SMART Technologies and Data Projections, Inc.

Cost: Free

Light breakfast and lunch provided

Register at http://goo.gl/SMqzM

There are a limited number of spots available so register EARLY if you wish to attend.

*** Important Note: SLCS is offering GT training on this day so make sure you are NOT attending GT training before you register.

SMART Exchange

(from SMART Learning Summer 2011 Newsletter)

The SMART Exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com) enables teachers to quickly find relevant resources, share lesson material and exchange tips and success stories about using SMART products in the classroom. When using the SMART Exchange, teachers can be confident that the content is relevant to the topics they are teaching and based on sound pedagogical principles, whether they need images, videos, SMART Notebook files or lesson activities correlated to curriculum standards.

The SMART Exchange also connects users with a variety of SMART experts including product managers, content specialists and technical support staff.

Content quality on the SMART Exchange

SMART takes a very active role in ensuring that all lessons are safe for classroom consumption. This means reviewing all lessons to ensure that they are classroom quality, and conducting the following assessments:

·         Reading words and viewing images on every lesson page

·         Opening all links to external web pages

·         Listening to attached audio files

·         Watching every video

The emphasis here is to make sure that teachers won't be surprised if they open a file in front of their students for the first time. SMART allows teachers to make their own judgments about instructional quality of the lessons, but our prerogative is to make sure that lessons are safe for classroom consumption.

Finding quality content

SMART does realize that the quality of content found on the Exchange can be very subjective. There are ways however to find materials that are deemed by other users to be effective or valuable. Tips for assessing the quality of files you find include:

·         Always using a keyword when searching for a lesson. Keyword example might be "fraction" or "climate"

·         Using the first lessons that appear in search results. Search results are based on “best match”, which is a combination of search terms, number of downloads, and number of recommendations.

·         Filtering search results by “most downloaded” and “most recommended”. A good rule is that the more effective a lesson is, the more downloads it will have received.

·         Using “Accredited Content” wherever possible. SMART Exchange hosts professionally created content from a variety of publishers including:

o   Classroom Complete Press

o   Intel Skool

o   Scholastic

o   Discovery Education

Extended SMART Community

(from SMART Learning Summer 2011 Newsletter)

Beyond the SMART Exchange, educators are constantly talking about SMART online. You can find hundreds of blogs, web pages and spontaneous conversations begun by teachers eager to talk about how they use SMART products to make lessons more compelling. A simple Google search for

“SMART Notebook” brings up thousands of results, and there are many sites dedicated to the use of SMART products in classrooms. A small selection of these sites include:

·         SMART Board wikis -- http://smartboardresources.pbworks.com/

·         Teachers Love SMART Boards -- http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/

·         SMART Board revolution -- http://smartboardrevolution.ning.com/

·         SMART Board Goodies -- http://www.smartboardgoodies.com/

·         Harvey’s homepage -- http://www.harveyshomepage.com/

·         SMART Board lessons podcasts -- http://pdtogo.com/smart/

·         Center School District SMART Board resources -- http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/SB/SB.html

·         SMART Board in the classroom -- http://www.eduscapes.com/sessions/smartboard/

·         Mr Vizza’s Webpage -- http://www.mathvizza.com/

·         Aegom Interactive -- http://aegom.com/

SMART Boards and Tagxedo Word Cloud Generator

I am in awe of one of the latest entries into Word Cloud Generators called Tagxedo. The options for creating word clouds are simply incredible and best of all, the site makes it very easy to save your work as an image file without the need to "capture" your work.

The flash-based results are a lot of fun to use and when you are using your SMART Board, you can touch on a word to make it enlarge and come to the forefront.

Here's a word cloud image I created from the words in my post from yesterday:

The site allows you to change almost any aspect of your word cloud including font, colors, number of words, shape, orientation, etc. When you're finished, you can Save your work in various sizes and formats.

Teachers Love SMART Boards - http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/

After the SMART Exchange, this might be one of the best resources for tips, tricks, ideas, and Notebook files out there. They revamped the site a bit to include:

• Categories that make it easier to find curriculum resources
• Weekly Notebook Lesson and web resource recommendations
• Notebook video tutorials

You really should bookmark this site along with the SMART Exchange.

For this afternoon’s Technology Time to Explore/Plan, please take a look at the following resources I have provided. Please try to find one or two ideas that you can implement into your classroom and curriculum. If you would like some follow up support on this or any other tech-enhanced curriculum project, please let me know. Thanks!

Teacher LED IWB Resources - http://www.teacherled.com/all-interactive-whiteboard-resources/

This is a nice collection of web-based activities suitable for your SMART Board. The site seems to focus on Math but also includes interactive activities for Geography and English.

Search Engines for Students - http://www.netvibes.com/ansercharter#Search_Engines

This is a collection of student-centric search engines that might be more suitable for kids than Google. Toward the bottom of the page, you will also find resources for copyright-free and public domain images.

Blog from Anywhere Instantly - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/28413/blog-from-anywhere-instantly-with-posterous/

I’m giving a presentation at the Region 4 Tech Apps conference in October on this topic. Posterous is an amazingly easy blogging platform that allows you to blog by simply sending an email.

Attribution for the above resources: Tech the Plunge

And just for fun…

Dotty-Dots - http://dotty-dots.appspot.com/?h=4d722e204d616b6c617279

Load this site on your SMART board and enter some text. Then move your finger around the “dotty” text and see what happens.

More SMART Board Resources!

TEQSmart - http://community.teqsmart.org/news.php

Join the site (free) and then have access to the Download section for Notebook files, tutorials, and subject area specific activities. You can also subscribe via email or even RSS to their updates. There’s even a brand spanking new iPhone App you can download for free to get the updates that is nicely-formatted-for-the-iPhone. Check it out!

SMART Exchange Gallery Collections - http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?m=08&

Are you looking for more Gallery items for your SMART Board Notebook software? This link has a nice collection of downloadable galleries that, when opened, will automatically install to your “My Content” section of the Notebook software. Calendars, states, genetics, seasons, wildlife, phonics and much more are available to download. The process is simple: just click on the Download link for the collection you are interested in. When prompted, click either Open or Run. When your Notebook software opens up, you will find that new collection loaded up in My Content.

If you are looking for Halloween related activities for your SMART Board (or without your SMART Board), take a look at this blog post from Teachers Love SMART Boards. It has an extensive list of games, SMART Notebook files, sound files, clip art, puzzles and interactive activities… all Halloween related.