Tequipment: Blogging About SMART Boards, Resources, Lessons, Training, Games

With the beginning of the school year just around the corner, why not revamp some of your old morning meeting routines by using you SMART Board to facilitate circle time. Here are some lessons created by our Teq-Certified users to get your started!

Morning Routine Templates
In this group of templates, you will find all of the regular things you do every morning with your students in the lower grades. Templates include weather routines, days of the week, attendance and hot lunch, and more!

Back to School
by Jennifer Milio
This lesson is designed to introduce students to the SMART Board, introduce them to morning routines, and to assess students’ skills from kindergarten.

Back to School Routine
by Mrs. Kuchera
Welcome students back to the new school year with fun interactive activities. This file contains features that are new in SMART Notebook 10.

Great news for the new school year!  With the Jewish High Holy Days approaching immediately after Labor Day, leaving teachers a mere few days to cover an abundance of materiel, here is some news to make your lives a bit easier.  With a few simple adjustments and a minor tweak you can now type Hebrew directly into the text box of any of the activities in your Lesson Activity Tool Kit.  No more of the old “Drag and Drop” method.

First you need to check the version of Adobe Flash Player that installed on your computer.  Click here and Adobe will let you know the version that you have installed. Version 10.1 (the most up to date version) causes problems when dragging the Hebrew letter נ (nun) into the LATK activity.  If you have version 10.1 installed you will need to uninstall it.  You can download the Adobe Flash Uninstaller here. Once you have installed this version you can download and install any of the Version 10.0 Flash players here. This Minor adjustment will take care of the initial problem between Hebrew and the Flash Activities.

Now you are ready to set up your computer for easy Hebrew editing within the LATK activities.   In your control panel locate the Regional and Language Options button and follow these 4 steps.

1. Open the Administrative Tab
2. Click the change System Locale button
3. Change the setting for non-unicode fonts to Hebrew
4. Reboot Computer.

Here is a video to show all of the steps:

With these 2 adjustments I was able to edit all of the LATK flash activity templates that I tested, including the Checker Tool, without a hitch. This is a great step forward and will be a tremendous help as we create new lessons for the upcomming new year. I would like to wish everyone a Blessed, sweet and healthy year.  שנה טובה ומתוקה

One of the most requested features that teachers want in SMART Notebook is the ability to play sound automatically when a page is entered.

Only MP3 sounds can play within Notebook when embedded onto an object.  MP3′s can only play/pause and restart when you leave and re-enter a page. If  a teacher wanted the sound to play again, he or she would have to either wait for the sound to end or leave the page and return, then click on the object again.

Flash files (either FLV or SWF) are the only type of files that play when a page is entered.  So, if you want sound to play automatically when entering page, what kind of audio file would you like?

You guessed it, an FLV or SWF file.  The subtle difference between the two is that the FLV version has a controller bar to stop/play/rewind/fast-forward, and to drag the timer to any part of the file and the SWF does not have the controller bar. Another bonus to using Flash here is that MP3 sounds cannot be controlled, only paused.

But there are free audio converters out there that will allow you to create FLV and SWF files,  such as  Sofonica, and Format Factory.

In the two videos below, we use Format Factory to convert a sound into an FLV file and a SWF file.

Converting to an FLV

Converting to an SWF

The SMART Lesson Activity Toolkit is now available in French, Spanish and German, and the English version now works with SMART Response LE and CE interactive response systems.

To download the latest version of the toolkit, visit the SMART Notebook software page.

Updating your Adobe Flash Player to version 10.1 on all versions of the Mac OS X operating system will cause SMART Notebook to stop recognizing the Flash Player! There are two solutions to this problem:

1. Upgrade your SMART Notebook to version 10.6 SP1, or
2. install an earlier version of Adobe Flash Player (like version 10.0.45.2)

Here are the instructions from SMART’s website on how to implement these solutions:

To upgrade SMART Notebook software to version 10.6 SP1

1. Go to smarttech.com/software.
2. Click Choose a product under SMART Notebook collaborative learning software, and then select SMART Notebook for Mac.
3. Click the Download button under SMART Notebook 10.6 SP1 software
4. Fill out the Download software form, and then click Start Download.
5. SMART Notebook 10.6 SP1 software downloads.

To install Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2

1. Quit any running instances of SMART Notebook software and any Internet browsers.
2. Run the Adobe Flash Player uninstaller, available from the Uninstall Flash Player page on the Adobe website.
3. Install Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2, available from the Archived Flash Player versions page on the Adobe website.

We have developed a new learning object for our neighbor to the West – New Jersey. As you can see in the video below, this interactive New Jersey map can give the New Jersey educator a good resource for different aspects of New Jersey Social Studies Standards: 6.1.B (Geography, People and the Environment); and 6.1.D (History, Culture, and Perspectives).

We’re offering the New Jersey learning object free for a limited time! Download it now from our online store.

Episode 3: Watch this TeqCast tutorial on how to easily take text from anywhere to place in SMART Notebook software. While adding text to SMART Notebook from a website or Microsoft Word document can be tedious we share simple and quick ways to make it a snap. In this TeqCast learn to alter text font, size, color and more.

Episode 2: Accustomed to using Microsoft PowerPoint but need to learn more about SMART Notebook software? Now you can Import your PowerPoint presentations directly into SMART Notebook with very little if any changes needed. Watch our TeqCast tutorial as we guide you through the steps and some troubleshooting to help you get up and running integrating your old PowerPoint files with the new SMART Notebook software.

Episode 1: Notebook 10.6 has many new features including the Transparent Background. With the Transparent Background you are able to look at websites, Microsoft Word documents or Google Earth and all from within SMART Notebook software. Watch Teq experts, in our inaugural TeqCast, to learn how Transparent Background can change the way you use your SMART Board.

Sheppard Software designs educational software and free online games/activities. The goal of the company is to create interactive, visual and auditory activities that stimulate thinking. When you mix the learning tools and games from Sheppard Software with the computer/human interface that is the SMART Board you get students and teachers having fun and learning. Any educator from any grade level and any curricular area is going to find something at http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/.

Sheppard Software seems to be no stranger to differentiated instruction. You’ll find many topics with levels of difficulty starting with easy, for primary students, through to levels that will challenge adults (Think you really know where the states are? Try this game ).

The quick links give you a glimpse of what is available. And the list of popular games hints at what people are finding particularly valuable right now. But don’t take our word for it. Go and explore. You’ll be amazed at what you find. It is good that you have the summer to explore the free learning games on this site because it will take all summer to peruse. View one of my daughter’s favorite activities: