SMART Notebook Files in Easter Theme

Wow, what a find today when I ran across this awesome resource just in time for the Easter holiday. If you want to engage your students (we know how their little minds wander when it's so pretty outside) with some fun activities, check out Shannon Long's (@SweetBlessShan) Smart Notebook files for Easter. While you are browsing through them, think  about how she has organized these in a LiveBinder. It beats going through your old school files flipping through pages & pages of materials. Does anyone do that anymore? I know I spent many years in team meetings choosing the activities that everyone brought to the table for our unit. I think that they dreaded me coming with my large stack to cull through. It was so time consuming and now with digital technology, everything can be saved and organized online with a SEARCH feature to boot. That in itself is worth all the time saved. I hope you will agree that these resources will be a hit in your classroom. You don't have to bookmark them all. In LiveBinder, they allow you to add other binders to your shelf. It is free to join, and does not require you to create one. You can just go and add all the ones that others have curated! Now, go and enjoy this spring weather since you now have so many activities ready for your students next week!

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Posted in Easter, holiday, LiveBinder, resources, Smart Board, SMART Notebook, teaching

Are you a SMART educator with an IWB?

SMART Technologies has been making many changes. Have you become frustrated and lost with so many of their changes? It has been hard keeping up with their free training resources and rushing to update your software before they began charging for any new software version updates. Several teachers and I joined in on a Ed2Ed webinar for their Virtual User Group. I was able to note some of the HELP (free) resources for new users who want to hone your skills on your Interactive Whiteboards. I think like most companies, they are trying to improve their product and at the same time, keep their customers happy. Here is where you can go to register for the LIVE webinars which they hold monthly. Heather Lamb (@heatherlamb08) hosts them and usually has an active SMART Exemplary Educator to share lessons, tools, and valuable IWB knowledge. You DO need to be mindful of the version that they use during the webinar, some tools are specific to the new Version 14 (even though they said before the webinar that most tools are not version specific, I found that to be the case).

The webinars are very informative, but with the short time frame (after all the product promos), they move through the tools and features quickly. That being said, you can refer back to the recording where they share on their Educator2Educator YouTube Channel This place is worth visiting. Love how they have sorted the short videos into categories which teachers will LOVE! Note all the different virtual user groups that they have now: SMART Table, English, and Tech2Tech (for technicians-here is the Tech2Tech website with more links) just to name a few.

Links for FREE available Training Resources on the SMART Board/Notebook:

1. Through your SMART Notebook software (visual shows where)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. SMART Training for Education: This link takes you to a page where you can Sign up for the Learning space with a FREE account. It allows you to do a needs assessment and then it places you in their training site called Course Park. There you will find free and $$ training resources. I don't think CoursePark is user-friendly, I always have difficulty navigating through their site. It helps to know your networks that are helpful and watch them. On my menu, it has in green SMART Learning Space for Education. Search several keywords: Smart Technologies, SMART Notebook, etc. You can follow people and networks. I learned yesterday, that it is helpful to move out of "courses" and click on "Boards" for information. See visual below:
   
   
3. PDFs and Videos on SMART Notebook: I went through SMART Technologies' website and through many links of training to get to this site (hope link works) that has pdf's and flash video with tutorials. Many of you may like the paper/print to learn. You will need to scroll to the SMART Notebook section. There's a section on the SMART Table too.
4. Interact Cafe (Lamar ISD) Training Online
5. EdCompass Blog gives you a classroom perspective  (has testamonies, templates, stories, lessons samples and more)
6. SMART Exchange- we cannot leave off this number one FAVORITE for resources of all kinds (even training ones). You can arrive at the SMART Exchange through your software by clicking the small blue icon (below) that is on your toolbar or by going in your gallery for the link.
   
    

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Posted in Course Park, Ed2Ed, Educator2Educator, links, SMART, Smart Board, smart Exchange, SMART Notebook, SMART table, SMART Technologies, training, Virtual Group