Retirement .. Relax .. Travel

I have offered some IT training to staff at school over the last year. Occasionally, people have asked for my help but this year I decided to ask them to fill in a survey I created using Google docs – when I sent the email to all staff, Google thought I had been a spammer and disabled my accounts until I gave them enough info to know it was me not a bot spamming. Many staff mentioned they wanted Smartboard training.

Many classrooms now have this magnificent tool in them and I am hoping they are used for more than watching videos. It has taken many weeks to get the Smartboards put up in the classrooms, then to get them connected correctly as well as find the cords and pens so teachers can finally use them in class.

So this week was the first group of activities playing with  Smartboards. I have on our school intranet many links to various blogs and activities using Smartboards so it is a matter of the teachers now looking through them to find lessons they could use or coming to my sessions to learn some tips and tricks when using the boards.

This week we watched a teacher training video by Russell Stannard. It began with:

• a basic introduction,
• looked at pens and how to change their width,
• add arrows to the ends of lines,
• using the highlighter,
• how to save your notebook pages,
• export pages to students,
• finding images relating to topics the staff wanted to use in class.

I stopped the video at this stage to allow a play session but found some teachers did not have the Essentials for Educators loaded on their computers so before the session next week they will need to have that organized.

During the play session, we also looked at:

• aligning the boards through the control panel,
• recognizing writing to change into type,
• dragging and dropping from the gallery,
• drawing straight lines on the board.

In total, over two one hour sessions after school, 6 staff attended the trainings. MOT, JF, AK, DD, SC, EW   I also had three apologies KW, AB, LMcD

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Original image: ‘Interactive Interactive – Laura‘

by: Dan Zen  Released under an Attribution License

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What do you think are the next most important things I should be showing the staff  about Smartboards during these sessions? Are there any blogs, videos etc you would recommend the staff be looking at?

Nearly two thirds of the way through the year and I am only just starting to use more aspects of my Smartboard.  Students were setting goals and using S.M.A.R.T. as their acronym.  One group of students wanted to learn a new game, so I thought “What about nine men’s morris?”

I went into Notebook on the Smartboard and created a gameboard with the circles and joining lines.  I locked these into place so the students couldn’t move them.  Then I created some coloured pentagons for counters, but often these would go out of shape as students were moving them and I would have to start again making more counters.  What to do?

I saw a post about games for the Smartboard, written by Jim Hollis, so I decided to send an email to him. He writes the blog “Teachers love Smartboards“ and I am also a member of a Smartboard Ning. 

Within a day, Jim had got back to me with a gallery object to add to my content page on my computer.  He had never heard of the game but took the time to create a new and MUCH improved version, better than I could have created with my limited knowledge.

Many thanks Jim and your motto is very apt …. Sharing is caring.

Been back at work now for two days.  Mentioned to the students about blogging and using lots of different technologies in the room – their responses ranged from looks of boredom in having to use the computer and oohs and aahs about having a world wide audience look at their work.

 The Smartboard has not been installed yet, so my lessons on Internet safety that I had put together with Ros will have to wait a few days. But this does allow time for discussions about what the students already know.  I decided to use a lot of the cartoon clips from Cyberquoll which was developed by the Australian government.  Some great worksheets and follow up activities including storyboarding - I’ll see what the students come up with as a way to create a video.

A very wide range of ability levels in my class this year – I was about to give away some of my teacher reference books for lower ability and younger students but I have had to drag them out again to use this year. The students have worked well for two days – been helpful towards each other, polite and courteous, a few chatterers but overall a great start to their year.

I spoke to the principal about using blogs in the room and as long as I had parent permission, separate from the school’s computer user agreement, then it was OK for me to use them.  Some other teachers have asked me about blogging and will be interested in the way students use them and the difference in their attitude towards writing this year. I gave the students a brief introduction to our blog pages just before I gave them the notice they would have to bring back to class; their keenness is shown in that I have had 20 replies to my blogging notice, while only seven replies are back about school computer use.

My niece and nephew spent a day setting up the classroom last week.  They do this every year and it only costs me a bit of money and lunch at the “Golden Arches”. Desks and chairs are set up, posters and pictures put up around the walls of the room, card kits used in the room are sorted into the correct order and all the teacher equipment for the five grade 6/7 classes are sorted and sent to the teachers’ rooms – blu tac, scissors, cardboard, pens, textas etc. Those necessities for everyday life in the classroom.

As part of our agreement with the Education Department we have to do professional development for at least one day before school goes back.  This year there is a big push on using the “First Steps” program which originated in Western Australia nearly 20 years ago.  It has been updated and revised and is a great program for reading and writing.  We looked at the writing program in our PD day and it reminded me of my years teaching in the primary school – charts in the room, creating word lists, describing the steps for writing a great piece of work – then I looked around my middle school class – there were the charts and the steps for good spelling and writing.  Once a primary teacher, always a primary teacher!! Despite having taught through to grade 9, I always have charts and posters on the walls of my room.

Well, Friday is the day.  I am heading to visit Ros, who is going to help me design some lessons for my Smartboard to use with my new class when we get back to school.  Yesterday and today, I visited many websites and blogs that already have lessons to use and hints for writing lessons using Notebook software. 

 My first lesson is going to be about Internet safety  and I would love to embed some videos or podcasts into my lesson.  I visited the website where Faux Paw shows students how to be safe on the internet .  Perhaps my students could design a wiki about Internet Safety.  Or they could produce something similar to a Voicethread program I saw on creating new American Holidays but use different rules for being internet safe.

I don’t know what these students already know about being internet safe or how often they use the computer both at school or outside of school, so perhaps a survey would also be interesting to organize. 

WOW!! This is going to be so much more interesting than photocopied sheets or standing in front of the class and lecturing.

Well, it is less than a month before I am back teaching.  A new class of grade 6/7 students – what computer and internet skills will they have? What social skills have they developed for small group work?  Using the Smartboard is going to be more new skills to learn.  What about those other teachers and students who come into OUR room to use OUR Smartboard?  Will they also have the same thoughts about keeping a room clean and tidy and looking after equipment in someone else’s room?

I know there are some teachers who have used Smartboards in their previous schools and because the one in my room will be there permanently with the data projector hanging from the ceiling, those teachers will also want to use it for their classes.  Each teacher has their own laptop provided by the Education Department but will it be more efficient to have all our Smartboard lessons stored in one area of the school’s server? 

Last year I used to mention when the Smartboard was being set up in my room for the day and teachers could come and ask to use the room at a time when I could take my class out for a different lesson.  This worked well but now with it up permanently, there will be no wasting of time setting it up and packing it away each lesson.  I am sure  other teachers will start wanting some lessons on how they can use the Smartboard with their classes. Will I need to organize a booking sheet for using the Smartboard?

How does it work in your school?  Remember, we only have the one Smartboard for grades 6-10, about 350 students in 13 home groups.

I have decided this year to learn how to blog as well as use my new smartboard in my middle school classroom. So I have lots of questions such as can I add pages to my blog for each of my students so they can blog as well or am I better to have them post comments instead? If you have any great suggestions for using the smartboard, please mention these as well particularly if they relate to Australian curriculum.