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:

This site can help minimize the amount of time you spend searching for pictures online. Just type in your search term, and the site organizes the pictures they have located into categories. Click on the image that you fancy and watch the “picture map” unfold to help you choose the ideal picture.

Once you have placed an image onto your Notebook page, don’t forget to add these images to your “My Content” folder so you have access to them whenever you’d like. To add a picture:

• Open your Gallery tab
• Select your “My Content” folder
• Drag the picture from the Notebook page to the folder
• Click on the “Pictures” bar and your image should be there

Download (for free) OE Cake! for Mac or OE Cake! for PC.

Download OE-CAKE for the Mac here and download it for the PC here.

The trick to remember about image fill, whether you are using this to fill a background or to fill a shape, is that you have to save a picture as a file on your computer. Images from the gallery cannot be used in this way. Here is what I recommend:

1. First, visit a website that you like to use to find images. For example, images.google.com or bing.com/images will allow you to search for any image you’d like. Whichever site you end up using is fine. Remember, after you type in your search term, click on the thumbnail view of the image so you can access the full size image.
2. After the page has loaded with the full size image, you will want to right click and then select “Save Picture As…” or “Save Target As…” Choose where on your computer you want to save this picture, name the file, and then press “Save.”
3. Now, when you are creating a page for your lesson and you want to add an image to fill the background, all you have to do is open up the Properties tab in Notebook, select “Fill effects” from the menu, select “Image fill” and click “Browse” (just below the blue square).
4. After you select browse, you have to find the picture on your computer. Once it is located, select it, click “Open,” and the image should be placed on the background or within the shape you have chosen to fill.

A tip to remember is that if you have a small image and are using it for the background, the image will begin to tile. To avoid the tile effect, search for images that are 800×600. For example, if I wanted to search Google images for a picture of the ocean that is 800×600 my search term will look like this “ocean picture 800×600.”

Using a small image to fill the background is possible. All you have to do is place the picture as an object on your notebook page. Position it into the top left hand corner of your screen. Using the resizing circle you are going to pull the picture all the way over to the right and then down so that the image will fill the page. Don’t forget to lock the picture in place so that it cannot be moved.

I wanted to pick-up where we left off last Monday. The following videos will further demonstrate how we can blur the lines between content and the tools we use to access that content. In this first example I created a supportive research environment using the Transparent Background option in Notebook 10.6, a web browser, and Diigo.

In this next example I revisit the use of the Transparent Background and an old NY state exam found on Regents prep. It’s funny really, because I went back and examined my original video and saw that I was still allowing older tools to define my use (change is a slow process). So, here is another attempt that should make things much easier.

Thanks for watching everyone!

Once upon a time, there was a feature in SMART Notebook that allowed one to print from a Word document into the Notebook software. It was quite nice.

In recent versions of Notebook, when one printed from Word to Notebook using Print Capture, each page in the document became a page in Notebook. Unfortunately, each Word page became a static picture of the text and objects that could not be edited or manipulated. The image quality was not great, and, as a result, Print Capture was not a viable way to transfer documents to Notebook.

Well hello Notebook 10.6 (affectionately known as NBX6)! The new update to the software vastly improves Print Capture. As you will see in the video below, when the document is printed to NBX6, each line of text becomes an editable text box within a NBX6 page. And again, each page in the document will become a page in NBX6.  The image quality is also much improved, making this a quick and easy way to take your documents to Notebook!

I know, I know, you are scratching your head and asking yourself, “What is he talking about?” Stay with me for a few minutes, and I’ll show you what I mean.

The new transparency layer in the Notebook software makes it easier than ever for teachers and STUDENTS to access the rich set of web-based tools and educational software that have become so pervasive in today’s classroom.

What if we had the flexibility to access content without the constraints of the tool interface? That seamless integration has become much more of a reality with Notebook 10.6. Come with me as we take a little tour of what is possible with the new transparency layer in the Notebook software. You will quickly see that we no longer have to work around the tools we love so much but instead we can now simply work through them.

In this first example we will use the Notebook to launch Google Earth (nothing new) and then use a few of the new measurement tools that come with 10.6.

So, you see that now it is possible to access the information we demand without the interference of the tools we are using. Here is another example.

Is this making sense yet? So, here is one more example for today. After looking at this one, start submitting your own . . . because this really does change everything.

To download the Notebook Math Tools Beta Software, or to extend the version you already have, visit the site: http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Support/SBS/SMARTNBMath.htm

If you already have the Beta installed you will find a small file you can download called SMART Notebook Math Tools Beta Extender. Simply download the file and run it on your computer. Your beta expiry date will automatically be changed from December 15th 2009 to January 31st 2010.