Monthly Archives: January 2010

This week’s technology topic was recording with the SmartBoard.

Watch this video tutorial for a great demonstration on how to do this:

Why would you want to record?
***Record primary students writing at the beginning, middle, and end of the year to monitor progress on writing technique.
***Have students create “How To” videos to share with the class, or the world!
***Record your lessons to share with absent students, or upload to your webpage, blog, wiki, etc. so that students can review certain objectives.

Here is another great handout with lots of SmartBoard tips and ideas – http://godigi.wikispaces.com/file/view/enhancing_smart_board_handout1.pdf

You can always find my most up-to-date list of SmartBoard website resources here – http://delicious.com/jlzurawski/smartboard

Today’s Tech Tip was about how to take attendance and lunch count with the SmartBoard. I am providing a Smart Notebook file for you that was created by Peggy Loritz and Wendee Draves. (See NOTE at bottom) Illustration #1 is a sample of what they are using in their classrooms every morning. You can see that they have added their student names in and the daily lunch choices. Illustration #2 is a blank example for you to tweak if you would like.

To tweak Illustration #2 for your needs, you will need to –

• Double click on the date and the hot lunch choices to change them.
  Click on the black area and begin typing a student name.
• Once it is typed and formatted the way you want, click on the drop down arrow to clone it. Cloning the name will create two names so that you can lay the names right on top of either. This will allow students to mark their lunch choice for two days if you wish.
• Once you have cloned the names, click the drop down arrow again and click “Locking”, and then “Allow Move.” This will allow students to move their names into the appropriate area without having the ability to resize, etc.
• To create another page for a new day, all you have to do is clone the page. Click on the drop down arrow on the page you want to clone and click, “Clone Page.”

As you can imagine, you can set up this page any way that you would like. Some teachers put a daily prompt or message on the page, etc. If you need help customizing a notebook page, let me know. I am more than willing to show you how to do this!

Did you know? Sometimes our SmartBoard’s need realignment!!! If you are touching the board in a certain spot, but it is not working correctly, you may want to try realigning the board! There are several ways to orient the board. Here is one easy way to do it – On the SmartBoard tray, hold both buttons (right click/keyboard) down at the same time until the Orient screen comes up. Use a SmartBoard pen to touch all nine points on the board. That should do it!

Note:  I cannot attach the SmartBoard file to this blog post.  If you would like a copy, please email me at jswanson at wdpsd dot com with SMARTBOARD FILE in the subject line.