Have you read a good book lately?

Love reading and I currently passionate about reading mysteries. Over the Christmas holiday I read a new author, Tara French. Check her out at Amazon.ca

Here’s an entry that I would like to post to my blog…

Ok, so I’m working today with a keen and dedicated group of educators…who are wishing to explore the unseen and beautiful potential world of BLOGS….

Let’s see what they think of my presentation so far….??

Please click on the COMMENTS button…and write a little comment or two about what you think of the power and potential of blogging with your students.

May the force be with you….

Downloading Notebook Software to your home computer

1.  To download Notebook software to your home computer…..

Copy this url into your Internet Browser…and travel to the Smart Board website….

http://www2.smarttech.com/st/enUS/Support/Downloads/default.htm

2.   The page you reach will look something like this:

Download software

SMART Notebook software Windows operating system Mac operating system Linux operating system GoWire cable software USB storage devices

3.  Choose the correct operating system for your home computer.

4. Part way down the page….you will see an entry like this…..click on the Download button….and follow the instructions.

SMART Notebook software 10 full download
Complete installation with SMART Notebook service pack 1 and SMART Board drivers service pack 4

Click the Download button to download version 10 on your computer. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Download details

Download

Version:	SMART Notebook: 10.0.187.1 SMART Board drivers: 10.0.232.4
File size:	151.6 MB
Language support:	View
System requirements:	View

Let’s explore some websites that post Smart Board Lessons for Math

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/smartboard

http://technology.usd259.org/resources/whiteboard/smartlessons.htm

http://www.kenton.k12.ky.us/SmartBoard/smartmath.htm

http://www.blackgold.ab.ca/ict/

Reflecting back….from your students’ perspective

Think of lesson in which you used “technology” with your students…..recently.

1. What did they learn?
2. How do you know they learned it?
3. What got in the way of their learning?
4. What helped them to learn?

How did they feel?

Why blog with kids during the inquiry/research process?

Joyce Valenza oulines five reasons for students to blog their research process

Blogging inspires reflection and focus on process.
Blogging helps learners organize and manage the process.
Blogging is transparent.
The best of these projects create pathfinders that might be shared by other researchers.
Blogging inspires interaction, social (constructivist) knowledge building, and the kind of intervention Carol Kulthau saw as critical in the information search process.

Comic To Go

Comics to Go     Mike Herrod’s playful illustrations give the beginnings of many different stories, and it’s up to the reader to complete them by adding just the right villain, musical instrument, ice cream cone. Once all the stories have endings, kids can make up their own comics from the start, using the blank pages at the end of the book. It’s the perfect gift for an aspiring comics artist!

Toon Do – a web-based comic book creator

 Check out another comic book creator….from this cool site.

Using Comic Life in the Classroom

The book reports we often see in classes are, well, boring. Comic Life can help students create reports that are interesting to themselves and the class – reports that are fun to create and share. The paneled interface of a comic lends itself to breaking larger concepts into smaller, easily digested ideas that can be strung together in a coherent and entertaining way. Creating the imagery used in the comic can draw a student into the story or character in a way that a written report simply can’t.

Here are some assignment ideas that lend themselves to the use of Comic Life:

• Timelines (history, events, sequences)
• Historical figures (history of, life of)
• Instructions (step by step, details, illustrations, easy to follow)
• Dialogue punctuation
• Character analysis
• Plot analysis
• Storytelling
• Pre-Writing Tool
• Post-Reading Tool

Book Report Alternative: Examining Story Elements Using Story Map Comic Strips

See book report alternative from READ WRITE THINK…for book report alternatives. After reading a picture book aloud…have your students write a short written response to the reading before opening up a discussion. Possible questions that may elicit conversation about the selection might include some of the following:

• What stood out the most for you in the story and why?
• If you were the main character in the story, how would things have been different?
• If this story took place in our classroom, what would change and why? (or our school, our town, so on)
• Have you ever had a problem like the one in the story? What did you do?
• Did the solution in the story seem realistic and appropriate? Would you have changed it if you had written the story?
• What event in the story interested you the most—not which one was most important, but which one did you want to know more about and why?

See Comic Book Creator  for more lessons that use this application.