2010 in review

This has been an interesting year for me. Marian and I have been doing more workshops. It seems that teachers need extended periods of time to work on projects. We do a half day workshop called "SMARTBoard Click A Long". In this workshop teachers make at least ten files using content from their exiting lessons to create interactive lessons. This workshop is generally rated 3.9/4.

We have also been doing "The Good, The BAd and The Ugly of SMARTBoards" It turns out this presentation is very similar to the learning path that is outlined in IWB Revolution.

I have also presented several introductory sessions and intermediate sessions this past year.

This past fall my school had 10 SMARTBoards installed and another 6 this spring. Every classroom will have a working SMARTBoard come fall. It has been very interesting as my staff make the journey from "Now What" to "It is not working, now what do I do?"

It has been the fastest adoption of any technology I have been part of. Very rewarding.

SMARTBoard by Video Conference

I recently presented a version of my presentation "Your First Hour With A SMARTBoard" via video conference. It is a much different experience, the spontaneity and the "hey what about.... " questions don't come the same way they do in a face to face presentation.

While I have been a video conference facilitator in the past this was the first time I actually taught with the medium. In retrospect the lesson should have been changed in structure to accommodate the medium better. We also ran a Brigit session to broadcast the screen to the remote locations as well. This caused a bit of a delay, possibly because of the bandwidth needed for the video conference.

The slideshow is housed at http://www.slideshare.net/glogan/first-hour-with-a-smartboard-to-export-as-powerpoint

The resources are at http://loganssmartboardresources.wikispaces.com/

Recent Activity

Marian and I have been doing a few presentations as of late.

We did a half day click along in Edmonton at the Greater Edmonton Teacher's Convention. This was followed by two "Your First Hour With A Smartbaord" sessions.

We then did the same presentation in Grande Grairie for Contact 2009 a convention for Educational Assistants. The presentation files are shared at http://www.4shared.com/dir/13312571/5244fdbd/sharing.html

Support On The Net

I have found a couple resources on the net that you might want to have a look at. The first one is a blog written by a trainer. He posts freqently and issues a challenge every Sunday afternoon. He responds persoanlly when you send him your completed project. The url is http://www.smartboards.typepad.com/

The second resource is found in iTunes, it is a podcast. The website also allows you to download the podcast. It is PD to Go at http://pdtogo.com/smart/?p=97

Enjoy.

Masters Certification

Late last school year Marian , my wife, and I took a course that enabled us to do Level 1 and Level 2 courses for SmartNotebook. The course required that we do some of the webinars, reading case studies, precourse activities, three days training and finally a video of us teaching part of the course.

So we went to work in the first week of July in a school with no air conditioning during one of the hottest weeks of the year to do some video work. In the end we were successful and both are now certified to do Smartboard sanctioned sessions.

We did a session on Oct. 4th for the ETC (Educational Technology Council of the ATA) in St. Albert. We had 30 plus people sandwiched into a classroom with laptops. We were very nervous and initially were told there would be 16 teachers. So when we heard that there would be nearly 40 we got very nervous.

The good news is we lived, but barley. The lesson we learned is to make sure people taking a course like this have used the software before. In the future we would like them to complete some challenges and before hand. That way everyone has a base to build on. We found that in the class we had people who could be teaching the session and some that were having problems running their computers.

We are hoping to do another one in Grande Prairie on the 29th of November.

Recent Workshops

I have been doing a few workshops at my school and for the Education Technology Council (ETC) of the ATA. I have posted my presentation in the ETC Moodle site.

Smartboards use in the GPPSD seems to be picking up, the IT department have 90 to install over the summer. With this number about 1/3 of our classrooms should have them by Sept. 2008. We should hit the 'tipping point' with this and the rest of the classrooms should be shortly after.

My presentation via slideshare.com

Smart Technologies PD

I have been spending some time with the Smart Technologies training staff.  No I didn't jet off to a sunny destination to spend a few days in a hotel doing some training.  I have found a lot of resources on the www.smarttech.com training link.  Here are the two minute video lessons, short sweet lessons on specific tasks.  A great way to add to the skill set.  

Smart Technologies also run a training room on their Brigit server (Smartboard sharing application across the Internet).  This software has the ability to do voice but you are directed to call a 1 -866 number to join your training session.  The sessions are about 30 minutes long and tend to be basic, but I have learned something in every session.   

The Education link on the web site takes you to a sub-site dedicated specifically to education.  There is a variety of training services here as well.  I have taken the training and been certified as a Peer to Peer  trainer.  This allows me to train other teachers on the Smart Notebook software.  So far I have modified the presentation and delivered two session at my school to teachers in our district.  My plans are to do more of the free training sessions, and eventually do the Masters Training.