Written by James Hollis
Why do we get that “wow factor” over some technologies? The last big wow factor I had was when I used my iPhone for the first time. I couldn’t stop playing with it! I took it to bed with me and watched YouTube videos while my wife sat next to me threatening to buy the […]
In 2007, I created a WallWisher Wall called Why do Teachers Love SMART Boards and asked teachers to write a short comment on why they loved their SMART Board. I revisited the Wall today and was astonished to find over 150 comments. This information should be shared with other teachers. Unfortunately, the Wall is filled […]
I’m really excited about a wonderful Vocabulary learning and review site called VocabAhead. This site is developed as a resource for students to learn some of the more difficult vocabulary words found on the SAT, GRE, or ACT tests. It’s a wonderful site to use on your SMART Board. This site contains an amazing collection […]
If you’re looking to spice up your Math class with an interactive and engaging way to create graphs, you may want to pop over to the new Chartle.net website. Their tagline is, “simple & interactive charts online.” After experimenting (playing) for over an hour creating various types of charts, I absolutely agree with their tagline. […]
Finding interactive sites for the Social Studies classroom can be a challenge, so I popped over to Free Technology for Teachers to see if I could find something fun. What I found was an amazing site called 10×10 that displays a 10×10 grid containing 100 thumbnail images that relate to the most discussed current events. […]
Sites like Thinking Blocks should be placed front and center on your school’s list of Internet resources that work great on your SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. This site was developed by Colleen King as a way to model Mathematical problems related to Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Fractions, and Ratios.
Some online resources help make the decision to have an interactive whiteboard in the classroom an easy one. When you use an IWB to see and interact with a resource like National Geographic’s MapMaker 1-Page Maps, it’s difficult to justify “not” having an Interactive Whiteboard. This interactive map resource allows you to explore in detail different areas of the world. All you do is select a region of the world and then select a country. It even includes more detailed views of the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
After all these years, Starfall continues to be the leader in providing high quality and engaging reading activities that work great on the SMART Board. Not only that, students will love being able to use the same activities and resources at home.
For all the teachers out there who use Smart Notebook to develop customized lessons on the SMARTBoard, here’s a short Notebook video tutorial on how to re-size more than one object by the exact same amount at the same time. I use this simple trick so much that I thought it was time I shared it with everyone here on my blog.
This week’s featured Notebook Lesson is about “idioms.” You can use this as a starter activity for introducing idioms in the classroom.
This lesson has three sections. The first section uses a common idiom in a sentence and the students have to choose the correct meaning. The second section gives an informational statement and then challenges students to pick the correct idiom. The last page challenges students to write their own idiom using information about Daylight Savings Time.