If you’re as bothered by having to click the Select Tool all the time, there’s a keyboard shortcut to help you out. The instructions are buried in the full-screen toolbar, but we’ll spell it out for you: Control+1. Hold down Control, and press the “1″ key. Using keyboard shortcuts can save you an immense amount of time.

We’ve been told that in the next version of Notebook, version 11, the cursor will change to the Select Tool after you finish typing.

What other keyboard shortcuts do you use to save time?

There are four sections of the Forum.  In the “Learning Objects” sections, teachers can share ideas and comments regarding the Teq learning objects offered in the Teq Online Store.  The “Bragging Rights” section is a great place to share success stories with others.  We love to hear about all the great things teachers are doing with their SMART Boards!

If you find that you have some general questions or comments about SMART Board or Notebook Software use, check out the “Classroom Use” section.  In the “Tech Support” section, you will find questions, comments and ideas regarding hardware.

Check out the forum! It’s really a great resource to find and share ideas!

If you have a computer running Windows 7 and have been experiencing a problem clicking and dragging objects on the SMART Board, the following instructions will provide an answer:

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Pen and Touch

2. Click the “Panning” tab.

3. Uncheck “Turn on Single Finger Panning.”

Hope this helps! You can now enjoy your SMART Board with all the Windows 7 goodness!

It’s been about three months since we uploaded a bunch of NYS tests to our SMART Response section on the ERC, and there’ve been over two thousand downloads of the various files. We recently were reviewing a PowerPoint document, and realized, “Hey, where’d the SMART Response/Senteo interface go?”

After hunting around the program, we realized that it takes a bit of tinkering to get the Response menu to pop up. Fortunately, the great folks on the SMART Exchange posted a quick fix. Rather than try and take credit for what they’ve already posted, we’re just going to give you the link.

In other news, we just received our Response LE packs. They’re currently up on FAMIS, and will be shipping before New Years. If you’re not familiar with the LE concept, check out the product page. Response LE is a student response system designed for early-childhood education.  There are five buttons, each with a distinct color and unique shape.  Check back here for updates on using the LE software.

In almost every search database there is a way to clarify and simplify a search in order to find precisely what a person is looking for. Additionally, since we as educators have to be more and more careful about what we expose our students to, it becomes much more important to censor out all the ‘bad stuff’ and focus in on what we need.

Below is a collection of Google words that, when used in the Google search bar at www.google.com, can narrow the search to only include information that is pertinent.

Word usage and their use in Google searches:

Source: www.googleguide.com

Random Word Chooser is within Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0 in the Gallery. If you don’t have LAT 2.0, or if your LAT 2.0 has fewer than 164 “Interactive and Multimedia Objects” you will want to update.

Here’s how to check for updates:

1. Click on the Gallery expandable side-tab.
2. To the right of the “Type Search Terms Here” field, there is a a Magnifying Glass, and there is a “Wrench (with a yellow handle). Click on the Wrench with the Yellow Handle.
3. Choose from the menu “Check for Updates.”
4. Choose LAT.
5. On the left, check the box for “All categories.”
6. Follow the onscreen directions.
7. You won’t see the changes until you QUIT and RESTART Notebook.

It doesn’t matter if you’re on a PC or a Mac, but if you’re on a Mac it will ask you for your password.

If you use Firefox and Notebook 10, you may have noticed the SMART Notebook Extension in “Tools” > “Add-ons.”  The add-on allows you to download files with the “.notebook,” “.nbk,” or “.xbk” extensions.  Without it, your browser may convert the file to a .zip file.

Also, from the SMART Exchange: “Progressive downloading.  It adds the ability to resume where it left off should a download be canceled partially.  This important because there are often bandwidth restrictions in some schools that may cause intermittent outages especially with large files.”

On the Mac version of SMART Notebook 10, there is a small Jelly Bean shaped button in the top right hand corner. Clicking on this button will alternately “hide” or “show” the toolbar.  So if your toolbar is ever missing, simply touch or click on the “Jelly Bean.”

One reason a teacher may want to hide the toolbar during a lesson is to increase the area of workable space on the board.  While entering full screen will also maximize the work space, you’ll find that the the Flash-based activities of SMART’S Lesson Activity Toolkit work best on Macs when Notebook is not in full screen.  So try the “Jelly Bean” button!

All you have to do is change your zoom settings.  Here’s how: go to the “View” menu and select “Zoom.”  Then change your Zoom setting to 100%.

Now, with the Zoom changed to 100%, take a new Area Capture and the result will exactly match the original!

*REMEMBER: Once you have finished using the Area Capture tool, change your view back to “Page Width” to finish designing your lesson.