"Hello and welcome to this episode of Odds and Ends. My name is Dianne Kelm and I will be your host today, as we explore ways in which to put the SMART into your classroom curriculum using your SMARTboard.”

Pause with music

You now have a SMARTboard installed in your classroom, whether by choice or the decision made for you.  It is an exciting time to begin a new adventure into the multimedia classroom environment.  In a few short weeks, maybe longer for some of you, you will wonder how you ever taught without it.

We begin today with the basics of using the SMARTboard.  The equipment you will use for the interactive, multimedia classroom is a computer, projector and SMARTboard.  The SMART software and Notebook 10 should be installed on your computer.

The first step is to orient the board.  Orienting the board is to allow the pens or your finger to exactly match the area you touch on the board.  If you press the SMARTboard with your finger and your cursor appears somewhere other than where you are pressing, you need to orient the board.  You can orient the board by holding down both the keyboard and mouse buttons on the tray to bring up the Orient screen.  This is a white screen with Xs on it.  You can default to orient more Xs for greater precision by clicking Control Panel on the SMARTboard tool menu and Orientation/Alignment Settings from the Drop Down menu.  If you are using a mobile SMARTboard, you will need to orient the board frequently, as any movement from the board or projector will offset the orientation.

There are 3 ways that a teacher will use the SMARTboard.  In the first way, the teacher may use it as a whiteboard.  The teacher may fill in the blanks on an assignment using the pens.  The morning assignment may be displayed daily.  The projector is primarily used for showing movies from the Internet.  These are all good beginning skills, but the SMARTboard user has to keep in the mind the relative advantage of using the SMARTboard.  Could the teacher just as easily put the assignment on a chalkboard each morning?  Could the teacher show the video on a TV?  Using the SMARTboard as a basic tool gets the teacher familiar with the tool, but identifying its uses to engage the student in active learning is the primary goal.

The second way a teacher will use the SMARTboard is to adapt the curriculum, using the Notebook software.  The teacher is still the primary user of the SMARTboard.  The SMARTboard is used throughout the day as a visual guide to demonstrate skills, write notes, show study guides and worksheets. The teacher has students share their PowerPoint presentations up at the board.  This is a comfortable way for the teacher to use the SMARTboard.  The teacher is still using the written curriculum, adding a few exciting components here and there.  The SMARTboard is used as a visual tool and easy to add information and save it for another class.

The third way a SMARTboard can be used is getting the student involved in the learning process.  The student will be up at the board, not just showing a PowerPoint, but actually using the SMARTboard to interact with maps, manipulatives or other types of interactive lessons.  The Notebook software is used throughout the day to fully integrate the curriculum into a multimedia format.  The Notebook features such as recorder, spotlighting and highlighting are used in the lesson on a daily basis.  The teacher downloads templates and lessons, using resources from the Internet and adapts it to fit the lesson.  It is an exciting endeavor to reach this goal.  The advanced teacher in using the SMARTboard is also the advanced learner.  The teacher is striving to improve skills by sharing with other teachers within the district and throughout the SMARTboard community.  

Our next lesson will focus on Using the Tools.  You will discover how easy it is to use the tools on the SMARTboard and Notebook 10.

Music fading in

Thank you for listening to this episode of Odds and Ends. Get comfortable using your SMARTboard this week in your multimedia classroom. My name is Dianne Kelm, your host for this first episode on putting the SMART into your classroom curriculum using the SMARTboard.  You can reach me with any questions or ideas for future podcasts at dkelm@festus.k12.mo.us.   This has been another Boise State, Department of Educational Technology, graduate-student quality production.

Music turned up