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.   

The Lesson Activity Toolkit

So I found this beta of the Lesson Activity Tool Kit. It allows the teacher to make interactive activities for the smartboard. The firist one I made was a sorting activity for the characteristics of spiders adn insects. It is very easy to use. I created the activity in no time at all. I enter the words to be sorted. I key it and then exit edit mode. The program put them in random slots along the bottom of the page and I could drag them to the sorting space. I click the button to "check" them. Imagine that I can actually figure out my own assignment. I hit the reset button and they are scrambled and move to the bottom again. There is also a Solve button that puts them in the right coloumns.

Overall a good little toolkit that allows the user to generate their own activities. The website states that there are known issues with the Toolkit on a Mac, sad.

Overall I have found that it works well but it does need the latest version of the Notebook software. A problem at school as they loaded the old version.

The students loved the activity. This teacher has them fired up on Spiders.

Our First Visit

So they came and installed my Smartboard today. It is really cool and the most expensive projector screen I have ever used. I have been playing with the SmartNote Book Software at home but it is still not loaded here at school.

I really don't know much about the software yet but I have found a long list of developed lessons on the www.smarttech.com site.
http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+activities/Notebook+activities/

I do note that most teachers I work with would not consider the lessons "finished" but it is a starting point.