SMART Certified Trainer

I spent three days in Columbia, SC last week. Another teacher in my school and I have had extensive SMART Board training and have even shared our knowledge with others in the past. Now we are SMART Certified Trainers. We had to go through the three days of training and then take a test when we returned home. I took my test yesterday and signed my contract with SMART. You can search the SMART website and find my name in the list of SMART Certified Trainers for Notebook (Windows).

SMART Table

I was very fortunate to get a SMART Table at the end of last school year. Now it is October so I have had the chance to put it to good use. My situtation is a bit different from the ordinary classroom teacher, because I am the librarian. I see students on a regular schedule and have activities for them to do on the SMART Table. Get more info here.
My students LOVE the SMART Table! It keeps them completely engaged and they are learning to work together. The great thing about this table is that several students can work on it at the same time. Unlike my SMART Board interactive whiteboard that only allows for one touch at a time I can put up to 8 students at the table and they can each use all of their fingers to manipulate the board. It is a perfect height for primary students and I have found it to be very durable.
From a teacher's perspective it is easy to use as well. It comes with a wristband flash drive to store activities. You can download activities from the SMART Exchange or create your own with the ToolKit. It really is simple.

The Flip Video Camera

I love the Flip video camera! www.theflip.com For under $200 you can get a handheld HD video camera. It is not only a great little video camera to take on vacation or for my daughter to use to make videos with her friends, but it is great to use in the classroom. The Flip is compact and simple to use. It comes preloaded with its own software that automatically installs when you plug in the USB to your computer. The software is also very easy to use and, surprisingly, it does a lot. You can mix videos, cut and paste, clip still photos, and so much more.
So, what can you do with the Flip video camera in the classroom? The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Have students create news shows or video blogs. Record students' oral reports. Have them record their experiments or observations. Give a student a Flip video camera and see what they can come up with.

A Computer in Your Pocket

I just got back from the Tennessee Educational Technology Association (TETA) Conference in Jackson, TN. It was a great conference and I came home with all kinds of ideas to bring back to my school this fall.
The keynote speaker was Jason Ediger. He is the Director of Mobility and Content for Apple, Inc. I am a PC user with an iPod, but I left that conference wanting an iPad, Macbook with iLife for myself and iPod touches for my classroom. Ediger showed a picture of his three-year-old son who has had his own iPod Touch since he was 18 months old. He has age-appropriate apps and knows how to use them. When Ediger sends his son to school in two years "they will take it away from him". This is why Ediger is so passionate about changing the mindset of education when it comes to using the technologies that our students already have and use every day.
This was a common thread in several of the sessions I attended. Students have cell phones and iPods, yet we tell them to put them away or sometimes we take them away. If they are lucky we will let them use a desktop computer or laptop for certain projects or let them have a turn at the interactive whiteboard (don't get me wrong- I love them). Why shouldn't we be utilizing the powerful pocket computers that we all carry with us every day?
My husband was at the conference with me. On our last night we went out and stopped at the Sprint store to upgrade his cell phone. He got a Moment and we have been blown away with what that phone can do. Calling it a phone seems silly. It is a handheld computer. There are over 350,000 apps for this phone. The educational opportunites are limitless.
It is time that we, as educators, step up and allow our students to take their computers out of their pockets and use them for good.

See the newspaper story on the conference here: http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20100715/NEWS01/7150310/Educators-see-latest-tech-up-close

Glogster

Have you heard about Glogster? I just learned about this amazing Web 2.0 tool today and I am so excited about the endless possibilities this tool has with the SMART Board. You can get a free Education Glogster account at www.edu.glogster.com. You can add students and manage their use of it as well. Checkout the glog I created on SMART Boards.