TeqSmart: Blogging About SMART Boards, Resources, Lessons, Training, Games…

The latest version of Google Earth gives users the ability to create tours that include historical imagery, embedded YouTube videos, and audio narration. The process to create these tours is fairly simple and, depending on the complexity, they can be completed in a relatively short time.

Here are some simple steps to create a virtual tour that can be launched from a Notebook lesson.

Creating Tours

Create and play tours of places and content, or create tours that record your exact navigation in the 3D window. You can also add audio.

1. To record a tour, click the “Record a Tour” button in the toolbar or click “View > Tour.”



2. The record tour controls appear in the bottom left corner of the 3D  window. To begin and end recording, click the Record/Stop button (red dot).
3. To add audio to your tour, click the Audio button (microphone). When you are finished recording your tour, it appears in the Places panel.
4. When you finish recording, click the Record/Stop button. The tour then plays. To save the tour, click the Save button in the playback controls that re-appear. Your tour appears in the Places panel.

Playing Tours

• To play a tour, double click the tour in the “Places” panel. To create and play a new tour of items in “My Places,” select the appropriate folder in the “Places” panel and click the “Play Tour” button. To create and play a new tour of a line (path), select the appropriate line in the “Places” panel and click the “Play Tour” button.
• The tour begins playing in the 3D viewer and the tour controls appear in the bottom left corner of the 3D viewer. To pause or resume the tour, click the Pause/Play button. To fast forward or go back on the tour, click the arrow buttons. To replay the again and again tour, click the Repeat button. Use the tour slider to move to any part of the tour.
• And the best part… you can change the view or turn on/off layers while the tour is playing!

Download a free file that will install a tour into your Google Earth. Having students create a Google Earth tour can be a great way to reinforce lessons in several different content areas. Using Google Earth on a SMART Board is already a fantastic interactive experience; the tours add an entirely new aspect that will encourage students to be creative and inventive.

NOTE: You have to have the latest version of Google Earth (5.0) installed to use the tour features.

Check back soon for advanced techniques to customizing tours based on height, angles, etc.

Math teachers may want to show the reflection of a shape across an axis. This video demonstrates a way to create a reflection in SMART Notebook using Object Animation. It also includes the use of Picture Transparency and Screen Capture.

Thanks to everyone who’s followed our blog over the past school year. Have a great summer! Here are a couple of short videos which illustrate some of the new features in SMART Notebook Math.

Handwriting Recognition for Mathematical Equations

Write an equation on the page using a pen. SMART Notebook Math will recognize many functions and replace your handwritten equation with typed, editable text.

Dynamic Graphing

Create a graph from an equation, a graph from a table of values or a table of values from a graph. Make connections between equations, tables, and graphs. Literally!

In elementary school classrooms students are often found singing and doing finger plays and rhymes. Teachers know that music encourages learning and has been linked with a child’s language development. Music stimulates the brain, and is correlated with children building vocabulary, gaining listening skills, and understanding basic mathematical concepts. Not only does music arouse the brain, it gets kids involved and excited.

Here are some links to find songs for the classroom:

• Bus Songs (http://bussongs.com) - This website has many songs divided by genres. For all the songs it lists lyrics and for some they have videos and/or audio clips.
• KIDiddles (http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics) - This website has song lyrics and audio. Sign up for free printable lyrics sheets and  put them up on your SMART Board for the whole class to follow along.
• Mama Lisa’s World (http://www.mamalisa.com) - This website has songs from around the world. The songs can be searched for by continent and the lyrics are written out in the original language and also translated into English. Some of the songs have sound clips and sheet music.

SMART Technologies has released the beta version of SMART Notebook Math Software 2009. It’s a great leap forward in how Notebook works in the Math classroom, and it provides some incredible tools for interactive learning.

Among the new features in SMART Notebook Math are:
• Handwriting Recognition for Mathematical Equations
• Equation Solving
• Advanced Shape Creation and Manipulation
• Improved Measurement Tools
• Graphs which connect to Tables and Functions!
• The ability to launch Ti-Smartview from the toolbar.

Click here to download SMART Notebook Math 2009 (Beta version)

We’ve added another Subject-Specific Math session and ELA session to our roster of summer courses! Math is scheduled for August 4 on Long Island, and ELA is scheduled for August 19 in NYC. We really appreciate the interest that has been shown in our 2009 Summer Academy, are we’re trying to accommodate as many people as possible. Keep checking our blog because new classes will be announced here first!

Thanks to the 300-plus people who downloaded out new Input Machine! Today will be the last opportunity to download the free version. We’ll continue to make it available through our online store. Please email us with some feedback on what you think about out learning objects, any ideas for how to improve them, or ideas for new objects!

There are a lot of  SMART Board resources for elementary, middle, and high school students, but younger students love SMART Boards too! This blog post is for you, Pre-school and Kindergarten teachers!  Check out some of the wonderful interactive websites that will be sure to get even your youngest students involved in interactive learning.

• StoryPlace: The Children’s Digital Library is a great site that includes online stories,  activities, and even take home activities. The stories look great on a SMART Board and the auditory component really makes them come alive. They also have a Spanish version of the site for your ESL students, or you can use this site to introduce your students to the Spanish language!
• Ziggity Zoom is an easy to navigate site that includes entertaining educational stories. The colorful graphics and interactive interface are perfect for your young students who are just learning to read. They have counting and color stories in English and Spanish, as well as some great online games.
• And don’t forget Sesame Street! Start off with the letter of the day (changes each day!). Videos and games on the site’s playlist will all start with that letter of the day! You can also browse by subject or theme, such as rhyming, early reading, cultural appreciation, and feelings. Tons of games (use your SMART Board onscreen keyboard for the keyboard games). So go back to the classics and visit Sesame Street again!
• TeqSmart loves Kerpoof, and so will you! (see our blog archive) Let your preschoolers design their own storybooks as they choose a scene, add characters, and then narrate their stories before writing them down. What a great pre-reading activity!

If you have any other websites or resources that are geared toward young learners, please let us know!

Ahhhhhh, summer is almost here and we all know what that means. Yep, a well deserved break from the classroom. But before you head off, we’ve got some exciting end-of-the-school-year news for you, including an opportunity to try our latest TeqSmart Input Machine learning object.

Based on our Function Machine for math, the Input Machine accepts words or numbers as customized input and output. It also allows you to insert Spanish-language characters.

For the next few days we’re letting our blog and newsletter readers download the Input Machine free of charge from our online store.

A few caveats:

1. As with our past learning objects, we’d like some feedback! Please email us your comments, suggestions, etc. — we want to know what you think!
2. There is a feature we’ll be adding to the Input machine that’s absent from this version: Allowing you to save the content that you enter into the Input Machine when you drag it from your SMART Notebook page you your “My Content” folder. This will be available in the “full” version of the learning object.
3. We’d like you to register with our store. It’s a free registration. You can also visit the free learning object section of our Educator Resource Center.

That’s it. Download and enjoy. Keep an eye out for the complete version of the Input Machine next week!

Take any picture (in JPG format), and JigSawPlanet.com will turn it into a fun interactive puzzle which students can solve at the SMART Board.

You can also select from 8 different common puzzles, including Shrek. The real fun is when you create a custom puzzle from your own picture. You can use any JPG file: a class picture, an historic photograph, or a famous painting. Once you’ve uploaded a picture, you can choose the number of puzzle pieces, the shape of the pieces, and whether the pieces need to be rotated or not. Your students will love moving the pieces around on the SMART Board, and solving the puzzle.