Selecting Items with a Tennis Ball on a SMARTBoard?

Someone gave me the suggestion this summer to use a tennis ball to move things around on the SMARTBoard.  I don’t remember who told me, but it is an awesome idea.  I do know that the tennis ball has helped my students move things around.  For some reason, a tennis ball glides on the board very nicely and the students feel like they can press pretty hard on it.  It is outstanding for special needs students.  Give it a try.

tennis ball

Some problems with moving items occur because you touch the item on the ”inside”.   See the picture below.   You must click on the outline of the item to move it.  This gets frustrating with certain objects that don’t have something inside it. This shape below you must click on the black line to get it to move.

rectangle

 Whereas if you have a shape like this, you can touch it anywhere to move it.

 red rectangle

Lastly, I think the easiest way to help students is to tell them to select the item first, and then move the item. This is done by touching the board with your finger and then sliding your finger across the object.  Some students like to use a tennis ball to touch and drag.  You will see your object is selected because of the blue line around it and the green circle above it which allows you to spin it.  Also, when an item is selected, you should see the little box with an arrow in the upper right corner.  This will open the dialog box to many other possibilities.  Once selected, an item is much easier to move.

select

Happy Smartboarding,

Dave

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Video Clip Ordering with SMARTBoard

 videoclipordering

What is Video Ordering?  It is where you make short videos with SMARTBoard Recorder, and have students try to put them in the right order.  This is done by linking the video to a shape on the screen.  When the shape is touched, the video opens.  Close the video and go on to the next video. 
Video Ordering is a lesson that you can make for your student in a short amount of time.  All you will need is a head-set ($15) voice recorder that plugs into your computer and SMARTBoard Notebook Software. 

Here are the steps that I went through in the video
VIDEO ORDERING WITH SMARTBOARD
1.  Create a problem that has an order with not more than 6 steps.  Write out your steps in SMARTBoard Notebook Software.
2.  Use SMART Recorder to screen capture your steps, naming them step 1, step 2 and so on.
3.  Put your videos in your attachments.
4.  Make some shapes in SMARTBoard Notebook and link them to your videos.  Put them in the correct order.
5.  Clone the page and write key on this page.  Go back to the original and reorder the shapes.
6  Have your students come up in pairs, one pair at a time, to click on a video, watch it, conference together, and then order that video (shape).  It will take four pairs of students to put the videos (shapes) in order.

All the best,

Dave and Scott

thesmartboardguys@teachingwithsmartboard.com

Click here to go to the blog entry on purchasing the book. 

Click Here for RESOURCES and Downloads including notebook documents and PDF’s from each episode and the Lesson thaqt is described in this post.

 

More SMARTBoard stuff at www.teachingwithsmartboard.com

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Episode 77 Teaching with Smartboard MATH TOOLS #3

In this podcast Scott and Dave talk more about the new MATH TOOLS software that SMART is offering.  The Math Tools is an add on software package to the regular SMART notebook software.  Also, there is a cool slide on the KOOSH ball game.  Hope you can join us for this episode.

 Click here to go to the blog entry on purchasing the book. 

All the best,

Dave and Scott

thesmartboardguys@teachingwithsmartboard.com

Click Here for RESOURCES and Downloads including notebook documents and PDF’s from each episode

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Now Available: A Smartboard “How To” Book

 bookcoverdesign

The book is finally here.  “Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates” is a book full of great ideas for helping you make lessons for your Smartboard.  It is a ‘HOW TO’  book of using SMARTBOARD notebook software.  It is an excellent resource for beginners to advanced users.  The book explains in great detail how to make and use any of the 25 teaching templates that we have covered in the Podcasts.  It is full of color cardstock pages.  It is spiral bound with laminated front and back cover.  This is a great resource for people to have something in their hand to explore as opposed to just looking at instructions on the screen.   The book is written by Scott Miller and David Sladkey who host the Teaching with Smartboard Podcast.   The cost of the book is $16.95 plus shipping and no tax. 


 

TO SEE THE TABLE OF CONTENTS AND SOME SAMPLE PAGES CLICK HERE

We feel like combining the Smartboard Notebook Software “teaching templates” gallery collection file with the “Teaching with Smartboard Podcasts” and the new book “Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates”will complete the circle of materials for you to be able to make lessons very fast.  This book is all color.  So when you come to a purple word that is a common Smartboard phrase, but you don’t know what it means, you can go to the back of the book where each word is explained with pictures.  For instance, if you were reading somewhere about “Locking” the image, the word “Locking”  would be in purple.  Any purple word is defined in the back of the book with detailed step by step instructions.  We have found that this book acts as a security blanket for teachers.   Many people like to have something more than digital instructions.  This book will alleviate that fear of  “how do I do that?”. 

We have been giving 0ut this book at our Smartboard training sessions within our district and outside of our district for a whole year.  Now it is available to you for $16.95 plus shipping.  If you have any questions about the book please email us at smartboardguys@teachingwithsmartboard.com.


   

TO SEE THE TABLE OF CONTENTS AND SOME SAMPLE PAGES CLICK HERE

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#70 Printing, Exporting, and Importing with Smartboard Notebook Software

This podcast will help you through the basics of printing any of your Smartboard notebook software slides.  There are many ways to print.  You can print with a full page, 2 slides per page, or all the way up to 6 slides per page.  You can choose the slides to print as well.  We show you how to do all this.  We also show you how to import your Powerpoint documents into Smartboard notebook software.  It is nice because the objects still are moveable in smartboard.  You can also take your Smartboard documents and export them into Powerpoint software.  Of course we have a couple of jokes for you.  Don’t miss this episode.

Happy Smartboarding,

Dave and Scott

 Download the MP4 Podcast directly

Click Here for RESOURCES and Downloads including notebook documents and PDF’s from each episode

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