Fresh Look Fridays - Virtual Keyboard

Good morning!

Time for another edition of Fresh Look Fridays.  This one contains a review of 2 excellent music websites:

1. Virtual Keyboard



The Virtual Keyboard website is exactly what it sounds like -- an online, virtual keyboard that works really well on a SMART Board.  There are a number of things that I like about this website:


- It has a variety of instruments to choose from.

- In piano mode, it actually sounds like a real piano!

- Chord Mode: press the 'chord mode' button, then select a number of keys and hit 'play chord'

- The keys are large with the notes listed on each one

I think this works well with a small group of students interacting with it on an IWB.  Depending on the age/musical knowledge of the kids there are numerous ways to use this in the classroom -- for example, have students compose music on it, play a "mimic me" game where students challenge each other to repeat a short tune that they make up or use it as a large surface for a group composition then have the students write down their composition for another group to play.

2. Boomwhackers

Another great music site, but designed for little ones.  This website works essentially the same way as the virtual keyboard one above, but is simplified and provides a colourful visual reference for each note.









Curricular Links:

I could, in theory, go through the entire Program of Studies for Music in Alberta to find correlating curricular outcomes, but since these are such open-ended sites, I think I'll let the music teachers decide how these websites fit into their units.

Have an awesome weekend!

Vanessa

Math Tools Part IV - Formula Handwriting Recognition

In today's tutorial on Math Tools for SMART Notebook, I've featured what I believe is the best element of the new toolbar -- formula handwriting recognition.  While SMART Notebook has always allowed for handwriting to be converted into actual text, most Math formulas went "wonky" when teachers tried to apply this element. 

Luckily, SMART recognized the need and demand for this feature when they released their Math toolbar! Check out my quick 'how-to' video below for a demo of what this new option can do for the Math teachers you know. (Where was this when I was a kid?):





For those keeping track, this is my 4th venture into the world of 'how to' video making. I gotta say, it doesn't get any easier to hear your own voice played back! lol :)

Happy Monday!

Vanessa

If You Ever Needed Proof...

There's a big debate in education right now regarding how effective SMART Boards (or other interactive whiteboards) are in the classroom.  I've seen numerous conversations on Twitter, nings and various blogs hashing out whether or not the cost of purchasing this technology actually translates into "better" teaching and learning.  Embedded in these debates is the question: are students authentically engaged with the material, or are iwbs simply a magical novelty that will wear off over time?

My response? Technology is simply a tool and will not magically transform your classroom! It's been said before and I'll say it again, "It's the teAch, not the tech."

My role as an Education Consultant is to lead educators through professional development workshops modeling effective use of their SMART Boards.  I purposefully demonstrate how teachers can change the structure of their classroom and have this new technology become a student centered tool instead of a primarily teacher centered tool.

How? One of the easiest ways is to set up the class into 'centers' -- yes, even high school classrooms can function this way.  As such, the SMART Board becomes one center where 4-6 students collaborate to work through a problem, explore a new concept, challenge each other to a review, etc.  This concept is the main reason for my Fresh Look Fridays posts -- using effective interactive websites can instantly increase the amount of student interaction with your new technology when combined with an adjusted layout of your room.

Recently, I attended Catalyst 2010 in Kelowna, BC. At our booth, we obviously had a SMART Board displayed, and I was playing around with some of my favourite interactive websites, when a group of high school students that were volunteering at the conference came over.  Essentially what happened was that they unknowingly modeled what I've been preaching this whole time -- small group collaboration to solve a problem.

Enter Exhibit A:

If you ever needed proof as to whether or not proper use of a SMART Board can be engaging, authentic and improve student collaboration and learning, here it is.

They spent the better part of two days at our booth, determined to solve all 10 geometry problems from the 3D Interactive Geometry site that I reviewed here. 

We couldn't keep them away!

Of course, being teenagers, once they realized that I was taking pictures they posed for a few more:

Haha - I miss the antics of teenagers sometimes. It was fun to have them hang around for the two days :)

Next time someone questions you on whether or not SMART Boards can be student-centered and engaging, point them to these pictures.

There, now I'm off my soapbox.

Vanessa

Fresh Look Fridays -- Viscosity Explorer

I may be beginning to sound like a broken record, but I really do value the ideas, resources and tips that members of my PLN (both virtual and 'real life') share.

I met a great Science teacher - Julie Pereverzoff - at a recent professional development day at Muriel Clayton Middle School in Airdrie, AB, and the focus of today's Fresh Look Friday's website comes from her.

The Viscosity Explorer is exactly the type of interactive website that I try to coach teachers to find for use on their SMART Board in class.

Students must pick a liquid and then drop a ball into each cylinder to discover the liquid's viscosity.  Tamper with the temperature to see what happens when certain liquids heat up or cool off.  A fantastic inquiry based activity or for use as a virtual 'lab station'.  As always, this site works best when a small group of students get to experiment and record their results while their peers are working on a related activity.

Thanks again to Julie for this website recommendation!

Alberta Curriculum: Grade 8 Science: Unit A, Outcome 3

Why Reinvent the Wheel? My #1 Tip for Using SMART Response

Time and time again I conduct a professional development day for teachers where someone inevitably says "I would love to use those SMART clicker thingys but I don't have time to re-type all of my quizzes, tests and exams into SMART Notebook."

Never fear -- there's a quick and easy way to combat this concern! I've created a 2-minute 'how to' video demonstrating how to import questions from a file.  For those who are regular readers of my blog, I'm furthering my video creation to include an audio component! lol  I hope it works...=)



Hope this helps!
Vanessa

P.S. I can't help but at least include some screenshots of important Current Events happening this week -- my inner Social Studies teacher won't allow me to pretend they're not happening:

Images taken from NY Daily News, Wikipedia and National Post, respectively

My Top 5 Favourite Interactives in the SMART Notebook Gallery

I just finished Day 1 of 2 of SMART Board professional development workshops with a great group of educators at Holy Family Catholic Regional Division in Peace River, Alberta.  We focused on the 3 areas in the classroom that an interactive whiteboard can help enhance including increasing student interactivity.

During today's workshop, we took some time exploring the gallery components in SMART Notebook (nearly 7000 items, and counting).  The idea for a blog post was inspired by this discussion and exploration -- I thought it was time that I shared my top 5 favourite interactive components in the gallery.

In no particular order, here they are:


1. Random Word Chooser

The uses for this flash file are endless -- insert students' names and select volunteers for activities, sharing answers or forming groups; insert key vocabulary in your subject area and use for a simple review game; insert themes or genres of writing and have students randomly select their topic for creative writing.

2. Dice -- Keyword

Click on the double arrows on the top left corner and edit it to fit your own subject area's content.  Have students click to 'roll' the die at the end of class and tell you something they learned about that term in today's class.  Voila! Easy-to-create digital exit questions.

3. Interactive Protractor

This upgraded version actually exists on the toolbar in Notebook version 10.6 (although a similar older version exists in the gallery too!).  I love the fact that if you click the bottom right arrow, it 'spits out' the angle complete with degrees.

4. Vortex Sort - Image

An excellent review activity for the end of a lesson or, even better, a great inquiry activity with feedback for students to test their theories.  Make each vortex rotate, customize the images and categories and have students drag each image to sort them.  If they place the image in the correct vortex, the clipart fades inward; if they get it wrong, the vortex spits it back out. 

5. Froguts

An old classic fun interactive.  This flash file allows you to virtually 'dissect' a frog -- minus the terrible smell! While educationally valuable in Biology class, this is also a fun way for kids to experiment and see the inside of frog -- even if they're not currently in Bio.

Please comment and share your favourite interactive gallery items.  I look forward to sharing in future professional development workshops!

Vanessa

Math Tools Part III - New Shapes & Irregular Polygons

For my 3rd installment of new Math Tools for SMART Notebook, I chose to go with 2 of the simpler tools -- the addition of shapes and the ability to create your own irregular polygons. While these are quite basic features, they're also some of the more desired features that make planning a Math lesson a bit more efficient for teachers.





Directions for above video:


1. Click on the Shapes tool within the Math toolbar
-- Numerous regular polygons appear, allowing you to choose a polygon with up to 15 equal sides


2. Click on the Irregular Polygons tool


3. Click anywhere on your SMART Notebook page, which will allow you to identify the vertices for your irregular polygon.


4. "Close" your chosen points to form a complete irregular polygon, which can then be manipulated in the same fashion as all other shapes.

Some quick, simple yet effective tools now available from the Math toolbar.  As always, try the 30 day free trial at smarttech.com

Vanessa

Fresh Look Fridays -- Human Body Interactive

Being a former high school Social Studies teacher, I love when I get a great interactive website outside of my area of expertise that still engages me! The Human Body Interactive, put out by the BBC, does just that.

Learn about organs, muscles, skeleton or the nervous system through an interactive placement game.  I envision this being used in the classroom as either a review session or, better yet, as a collaborative small-group inquiry session on an iwb.

Thanks to my former colleague Shannon Cederstrand (an excellent high school Biology teacher at Oilfields High School) for the awesome link!

Vanessa

P.S. As I publish this post to my blog, I'm getting ready to head out to my 5th teachers' convention in as many weeks [for those at the Central East Alberta Teachers' Convention stop by and say hi!]

New to Notebook? 5 Tips & Tricks to Get You Started

I'm always on the lookout for new resources to help support teachers integrate various pieces of technology into their classroom practice.  While I love spending time with teachers at workshops, the reality is that sometimes they just need a quick 'demo' of some basic features to get them started.

Enter eduTecher: an excellent site devoted to tons of different resources and tutorials to help get teachers up and running with technology in the classroom.  A colleague of mine came across a particularly useful video entitled 5 Tips and Tricks for the SmartBoard:

If you're new to SMART Notebook, I highly recommend taking a look at the above video.  Funny enough, despite tons of experience with a SMART Board, I was completely unaware of Tip #5 until my SMART certification this past Fall!  Just goes to show that sometimes you don't know what you don't know!

I hope this helps those SMART newbies out there!
Vanessa

Math Tools Part II -- Interact with Vertices, Angles and Lengths

 First, just a side note from a recent convention (NETCA in Edmonton).  Congratulations to Helena Welsh at Athabasca Delta Community School who won a SMART Board 685 i3!!


And now onto today's post...

I've done a lot of 'on-the-fly' demos of the new SMART Math Tools for Notebook at recent professional development workshops and teachers' conventions. The new ability to manipulate a shape's vertices and have the corresponding interior angles and side lengths displayed always gets a great reaction from Math teachers.

Therefore, I thought it was time to share my second installment of 'how-to' videos on the new SMART Math Tools:




Step by Step Instructions for the Above Video:


1. Insert a shape that contains corners


2. Marquee select (highlight) the shape


3. Select "Show/Hide Vertices" from the drop down menu


4. Select "Show/Hide Interior Angles" from the drop down menu


5. Select "Show/Hide Side Lengths" from the drop down menu


6. The vertices (red circles on the corners of the shape) are interactive. Click and drag to change their position. Note that the interior angles and side lengths also change as you manipulate the vertices.

If you want to try this feature (and more) out, download the 30 day free trial from SMART Technologies.

Vanessa

SMART Notebook Math Tools - Part I

SMART Technologies released its full version of Math Tools for Windows last month (download a 30-day free trial version here). This new Math toolbar appears bolted under the original tool bar in SMART Notebook and looks like this:

I gotta say, despite the fact that I taught Social Studies for the majority of my teaching career, I'm very impressed with the amount of calculations, demos and visuals this new Math toolbar can do! While I'm no expert on teaching Math, I am very much aware of how these new features can improve student understanding of abstract concepts, and open the door for some inquiry-based learning in the field of Mathematics (but that's a post for another day!)

Therefore, I will be devoting a number of future blog posts to helping teachers uncover the various features of this amazing tool -- starting today. It's also an excuse to begin experimenting with creating SMART Notebook instructional videos -- so please bear with me as I not only relive my Calculus and Algebra days, but also venture into amateur movie making :)

** Note: For this particular post, I've been faced with the problem of my MAC recognizing my microphone drivers on the Windows side...sigh...therefore, rather than narrate this one, I'll record the steps in written text below the video!

Lesson #1: Shape Division

Steps:


1. Select the "perfect circle" option under the shapes tool


2. Press where you want the middle of the circle to be and drag to increase the size


3. Select the circle either by clicking on its border or marquee selecting


4. Select the drop-down menu that appears and choose "shape division"


5. Designate the number of segments you'd like to divide the shape into (up to 12)


Voila!


For the square, choose the 'perfect square' option under the shapes tool and repeat steps 2 - 5.

For an even better visual, you can choose to fill one or more of the segments with different colours -- use your properties tab and choose 'fill effects'

Watch for more Math Toolbar tips in the future!

Vanessa

Fresh Look Fridays -- iNudge

When I was teaching, I found that many all-staff professional development sessions focused on core curriculum only.  As a Social Studies teacher, this was great for me since I taught a 'mainstream' course, but I always felt bad for my friends and colleagues that were grouped into the category of "options teacher".  As such, I try to make a conscious effort to address specific curricular outcomes in complimentary curriculums during pd sessions that I lead.

Today's Fresh Look Friday's review is therefore a website to appease my music-teacher friends.   iNudge
was recommended to me by Mike Yuzwenko -- music teacher at Riverbend Jr High in Edmonton, AB.

The basic premise is that students can explore with creating rhythms and music with 8 layers of sound (one for each of the buttons on the right hand side).  No formal music training is necessary, but how pleasant your creation comes out depends on what instruments you select to play, at what pitch and at what time.  Simply press a square on the matrix, and it will register a sound there as it cycles through.  Play around with tempo and share your creation with friends!  A great music "centre" if set up on an interactive whiteboard in your classroom.  Thanks, Mike for a fun, yet educational, website! :)

As always, ties to curriculum are important, so here are a few areas within the Alberta curriculum that this website helps meet:

Grade 4-6 Music: Creating Strand, Outcomes 5, 9, 12
Grade 7-9 General Music: Level III Module, Performance and Structures Outcomes

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!
Vanessa

Top 5 Uses for SMART Document Camera in the Elementary Classroom

As technology evolves, so does it's use in education.  Not meant to be a band-aid solution for classroom issues, the various pieces of technology should be used as tools to enhance and support the classroom experience.  The beauty of this is that these tools are as limited or limitless as the imagination of the teacher.

One valuable piece of technology is the document camera.  I've featured the SMART doc cam simply due to the fact that it integrates seamlessly with SMART Notebook -- one click of the button on the toolbar, and voila! Your image is displayed directly on the SMART Board and can be saved into a Notebook page.

                                                                                                              

I've seen numerous great examples of using document cameras, and had even more suggestions provided to me by my PLN on Twitter.  For the purpose of this discussion, I thought I'd share the top 5 examples that I feel would enhance learning in the elementary classroom.

In no particular order, here they are:

1.Capture images of eggs hatching, plants growing, etc. -- some document cameras have a "timed capture" option, so the class can see the progression every hour, every day, etc. Of course, you can manually capture images as an experiment progesses -- at the start of every Science class, for example.

2. Model an abstract concept that students have a hard time visualizing.  For example, zoom in close during a discussion of the surface tension of water

3.  Reading a story together as a class? What better way to have Kindergarten or Grade 1 students follow along and read aloud as a large group -- because document cameras capture real-time movement, the teacher can point to each word as it's read.  The colourful pictures can also become a jumping-off point for discussion.  Don't forget to save an image of the students' favourite page to refer to during a later activity!

4. Capture an image of a student's handwritten rough draft.  Quicker and simpler than hooking up a scanner, and using some fun tools within SMART Notebook, manipulating the information has never been easier!

5. Enlarge an activity that you'd like to model prior to students working independently.  Because the document camera is so easy to manipulate and contains options such as zoom, auto focus and freeze, it becomes an extremely flexible "microscope".  The sky is the limit -- investigate the parts of a flower, model how to count coins, examine that lady bug that someone brought in from recess -- the possibilities are truly endless.

Fresh Look Fridays - Astrotour

I figured by week 4 of Fresh Look Fridays it was time to bring my Science colleagues into the fold. As such, my website for this week's review is the Astro Tour



An awesome look at the solar system, it works incredibly well with small groups of students at the SMART Board. The goal here is for students to spend some time experimenting with the tools on the side (you can slow down the speed of orbits, zoom in, change the central object to follow, etc.) as well as work through the tutorial.

Yet another great example of inquiry based learning amplified by an interactive whiteboard.

Looking for curriculum ties?
Grade 6 Science - Topic C
Grade 9 Science - Unit E


Have a great weekend, everyone!
Vanessa

I Can Take a Picture of What?

I'd like to start this post by taking a minute to thank the staff of Hunting Hills High School in Red Deer, Alberta. I just spent the past 2 days leading workshops with the Math/Science department and the Humanities department and had a lot of fun with the participants on each day. They were a great group of fantastic educators with lots of ideas, great energy and varying levels of background knowledge with SMART products.


Now onto my post...with so many tools in SMART Notebook, the floating toolbar and the control panel, it's easy to overlook some of the features that are available to you. Unless you have time to sit down and thoroughly experiment with all the the icons, buttons and links, I find that most users initially find a level of comfort with using "main" tools in their classroom and don't dive into the rest.

One of my favourite tools that I believe gets overlooked far too often is the area capture tool. When it is selected, it's own mini toolbar follows you into any program or website, and allows you to take a picture of an rectangular area, a window, your desktop or an area drawn by freehand.

Why do I like it so much?

• It's super easy to use (even the most introductory users can grasp the concept and implement it immediately)
• The picture is instantly embedded into a SMART Notebook file, so that you can manipulate it like any other object on a page
• The applications for use are endless -- screen shots to demonstrate a new skill, area captures of a website that your students explored to use as a visual reference, introducing layering in art (by taking freehand captures of vegetation, animals, people, etc. and building a new scene), the list could go on and on
  

But my favourite reason that I like this tool? Because of the wonderful reaction I get from "1st-time viewers" of its use, "I can take a a picture of WHAT?"

Vanessa :)

Fresh Look Fridays - Interactive Geometry: 3D

Before I get into this week's review of an interactive website, I just want to take a few minutes to thank everyone for their hospitality this past week. I spent the last 4 days in Ontario, conducting SMART Board workshops for teachers and division office staff with both the District School Board of Niagara and the Durham Catholic District School Board. The participants in each session were enthusiastic, fun and obviously very knowledgeable, which always makes for fantastic workshops! Thank you!










My Fresh Look Friday website today comes at the suggestion of one of this past week's participants -- Lynn Jeffs with DCDSB. MathsNet Interactive Geometry: 3D is a fantastic interactive website for junior high - high school math students.


This website provides challenges where students have to replicate specific 2D images on a 3D platform. For the spatially challenged, such as myself, this is not as simple of a task as it first seems! I particularly love this site because it easily lends itself to small-group collaboration, trial and error discussions and problem solving -- all skills for our 21st century learners. Put it on the SMART Board, and work through together as a class, or make the SMART Board a 'center' with this one Geometry activity for one group of 3-5 students to tackle, while other small groups work on additional geometry challenges around the room (traditional pen and paper Math problems, building 3D models, etc.)

Thanks, Lynn for sharing a fantastic website that works extremely well in classrooms with IWBs!

As always, here are the curricular outcomes for Alberta that this site helps meet:

• Grade 9 Math, Shape & Space Strand -- S.O. 4
  
• Math 10-3, Geometry Strand -- S.O. 1
• Math 20-2, Number & Logic Strand -- S.O. 2

And what the heck, since this site came from a colleague in Ontario, here are the Ontario Education outcomes:

• Grade 9 Math, Advanced -- Measurement and Geometry
• Grade 10 Math, Advanced -- Analytical Geometry

Have a fantastic weekend everyone :)
Vanessa

Learning to Share -- Not Just for Kindergarteners

What a great day -- a full workshop with amazing teachers from the District School Board of Niagara! We spent the time exploring numerous ways to use their SMART Board from K-12, all subject areas.


As always, the experts from the classroom generated wonderful new lessons as we went through some sample files. A common question I get at such an energetic workshop is how do teachers efficiently share the lessons with colleagues -- both the ones created today, as well as those in the future?

This is a common obstacle to implementing new technology in education, and one that can be overwhelming. Let's face it - many teachers are already spending countless hours worrying about their own lessons. As such, sharing ideas and lessons with others is a great idea in theory, but without structure and organization can result in frustration for all involved.

Here are a few of the most popular ways to combat this common issue:


1. Make the most of SMART Exchange (http://exchange.smarttech.com)
- search by curriculum standards
- browse by subject area, grade level, topic
- tag your own files with identifiable key words (such as your school district's name) to make sharing with local colleagues more efficient
- 'recommend' good files, then search by 'most recommended'


2. Host a file-sharing area on your network - either using webspace or a shared drive
- teachers may feel more secure not sharing some of their 'rough drafts' of lessons with more local colleagues, rather than publishing them for all the world to see
- easy for many teachers within a division to access, update and re-post with little to no need for technology "know-how"



3. Use a file-sharing site online (such as drop.io)
- the free version allows for 100 megabytes of space; a fairly low-cost upgrade allows for an expansion of this space, with plans beginning at 10 gigabytes
- the name of your drop.io is easily customizable, making sharing within a district easy and effective

Whatever method you and your colleagues decide to use, the main point is that sharing lessons, tips and tricks amongst the experts in your division (and larger PLN) is crucial. Open and shared collaboration is one of the key components to the continued success of using new technology (including SMART Boards) in the classroom.

Maybe it's time we took a look back at one of the key lessons we learned in Kindergarten...


Vanessa

Fresh Look Fridays -- Paint Splat

I've decided to create a new component of this blog entitled "Fresh Look Fridays". My goal is to offer a link and a review of a valuable educational website that works well with an IWB.

My motivation for this is two-fold:

1. I consistently get questions from teachers about how to effectively use their SMART Board with resources outside of SMART Notebook software.

2. Let's face it -- by the end of a work week, our brains are metaphorically fried, our attention spans shorter and our ability to sort through information diminished. Aside from pre-coffee Monday mornings, this is the time of the week when I'm least likely to dive into the depths of my intellectual side, so it's probably best for me to avoid exhaustive philosophical discussions of current educational pedagogy!

Paint Splat is one of the best interactive elementary games on Peep and the Big Wide World. (It is the 3rd game from the top left)


Students need to select which tubes of paint they need to make Peep jump on in order to match the colour splat shown. Press on the hose to wash down the wall!

I've seen teachers use this as an inquiry project (students guess which colours might work), as a whole class review (the class votes on which colours should be selected) and as a small group learning center (groups of 3 - 4 students manipulate the board while others are working on other colour-related activities).

It's amusing, it's cute and best of all it's educational. And for those of you keeping track, it links to the following curriculum standard in Alberta: Grade 1 Science, Topic A - G.L.E. 5.


Happy Friday!
Vanessa

These Are a Few of my Favourite (Tech) Things

With Christmas fast approaching, I feel like I need to do something to get this blog (and myself) in the holiday spirit. What better way to accomplish this than to compose my own version of the classic "Sound of Music" song -- These Are a Few of my Favourite Things.

Since you're already singing the song in your head, just sing the following lines to that tune. Feel free to add your own verse or two in the comments section!


Tweeting on Twitter and New Waves on Google
SMART Notebook files made for students to oogle
Connecting with teachers on various Nings
These are a few of my favorite things

Document cameras and the new Magic Planet --
it's a cool thing to look at, click here if you haven't
Wikis and Moodle and learning 'bout blogging[s]
These are a few of my favourite things

SMART's newest Math Tools and making fun Flash files
Delicious and YouTube and fun Facebook profiles
Songs on your iPhone that you just want to sing
These are a few of my favourite things

When Firefox is slow
When my Gmail quits
When my MAC makes me mad
I simply remember my favorite tech-bits
And then I don't feel so bad



Happy Holidays everyone!
Vanessa

Why is Interactivity Limited with Interactive Whiteboards?

Since I present professional development workshops to a wide variety of participants -- administrators, tech leads, teachers -- I always send out a pre-workshop survey. My goal with this survey is to ultimately figure out where my participants' knowledge falls along the technology continuum...are they aware of basics such as 'save' vs. 'save as', do they understand audio/visual components of their computers, how SMART Notebook savvy are they, etc. The feedback is extremely valuable to help inform me what examples, websites and lessons is most appropriate to show during the instruction portion of these sessions.

What I didn't expect to discover is that amidst the hundreds of filled out surveys that I've received thus far, one glaring commonality is hidden within the results: the vast majority of teachers aren't using their SMART interactive whiteboards for much student interactivity. Why is that? Since I don't currently have a comments section in this portion of the survey, I can only speculate from my own past experience as well as informal dialogue with my colleagues. Perhaps it's the fear of not knowing how to manipulate the software to produce interactive components. Maybe teachers with SMART Boards never really asked for them in their classrooms in the first place. It could be the lack of professional development workshops that address adding student interaction -- it's sometimes hard to visualize how to get students using the SMART Board outside of the standard 'one student at a time while the rest of the class watches from their desks' scenario. Maybe, just maybe, it's the lack of prep time that teachers have, and the thought of adding just one more thing to their plate of marking, prepping, student discipline, maintaining contact with parents, coaching and meeting PLC requirements makes most teachers' stomachs turn.

I suspect that while it may be a combination of the issues presented above, it is the final description that most teachers identify with. It is a shame that adding interactivity is viewed as an enormous task that only the most tech-savvy teachers with an abundance of time on their hands can accomplish. What most don't realize is that pre-loaded templates in the SMART Notebook Gallery can quickly be edited to fit their own curricular content, or that there are an infinite amount of websites dedicated to adding interactivity to a lesson. This interactivity also doesn't need to be some massive 90 minute activity with all students manipulating content throughout the duration of the lesson; sometimes all it takes is a brief excuse for students to get out of their desks and have a bit of control over a portion of the content explored as a class. I can't tell you how many teachers have commented on how quickly their mindset changed after they were shown a simple demonstration of some quick and easy interactive elements that they hadn't previously been aware of.

What hurdles do you feel are the largest for teachers to overcome to increase student interactivity in their classroom?

How do you incorporate student interaction with your interactive whiteboard?