Using our SmartBoard is Getting Better and Better
We have been having so much fun using our SmartBoards. It is great to be able to witness the teachers becoming more and more enthralled with them. Let’s not even mention how interested and engaged the students are.
Currently we have 3 wall mounted boards and one portable board that is being shared by 2 teachers available. One of the wall mounted ones is installed in Tech Connect, hence available for each teacher as they rotate once a week through or on a sign up basis.
Since the beginning of the year, we have had one full day of SmartBoard Training and many one on one “Let me show you”s or “Let’s take some time some time to play together with the software and see what it can do”.
As I am learning with the teachers once incredible resource has been the Teachers Love SmartBoards blog. James Hollis shares some amazing Tricks and Tricks. Many times I read a post in my Reader and immediately am trying it out with the Notebook software. I can’t wait to get to school to fire up the SmartBoard and try it out there too.
This past week I saw James’ screencast of some tips in working with tables in his post “SmartBoards and table objects up my sleeve“. He showed a great way to adjust the height of the rows, inserting objects in the table and then the use the cell shades can have. I decided to use this tip that same afternoon with my Tech Club kids. I created a table and inserted clipart/screenshots representing skills that they are mastering. I then created a row for each students’ name, dragged the icon into each cell of its column and finally added a screen shade to each cell. As students are completing projects and mastering skills, they come to the SmartBoard and clik on the shade to reveal the “stamp” of completion. The list was a big success among the club kids.
I was so excited about my little table 
, that I showed the tip to my Kindergarten teachers. Their wheels started turning immediately and not a day later, they had created their own charts and used them with their students when tasting and sorting apples.
We have teachers come in to TechConnect in their own time and after school to learn about the SmartBoard. The majority of them have downloaded the SmartBoard Notebook software on their computers at home. They are browsing, downloading and tweaking notebook files in various degrees.
Introducing the SmartBoards have been a great success so far, exceeding expected teacher AND student involvement, engagement and interest.
This is inspiring. Thanks for sharing the Teachers Love Smartboards blog. How is the portable smartboard succeeding at your school? I ask because I find myself unable to use mine. I just can’t get the projected image to fill the screen. It’s crooked and every time someone sneezes, it moves and becomes unaligned. I have been using it as the world’s most expensive projection screen and feel terribly guilty about it. The installed ones work great, though.
@Andrea
We have one portable SmartBoard with some of the same issues as you. The distance from the projector, which is on a cart and not ceiling mounted, makes it hard to fill the entire board AND at the same time have room for the kids to sit between the projector cart and the SmartBoard. The projector cart is pretty big and sturdy so the calibration of the board is not such a big problem. We are still contemplating of purchasing the projector from SmartTech that attaches directly to the board to eliminate the issue with the cart.
What a great idea! I can think of quite a few uses in my class. The first one that comes to mind is to use it as a kind of progress chart for the steps that need to be completed in Writing or for their ePortfolios. Thanks for a great blog.
I just thought of another one: Progress in inquiry!