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.

What to do when the light is flashing

I've had people ask me before what they should do if the Ready Light on their SMART Board is flashing. First of all, the Ready Light is the small LED light at the bottom right side of the board. When the light is solid green your board is functioning properly. There are several reasons your light may not be solid green.

No light: Your board is not connected properly/ Your computer is not turned on.

Flashing green light: Your SMART Software is not working properly. If this is the fist time you've attempted to use your board with the software check to make sure you installed the software and the drivers and that you have entered the product key correctly. If you had previously used the board and software you may need to uninstall and reinstall the SMART software.

Solid red light: The board and computer are not communicating properly. Try restarting your computer. If that does not solve the problem try resetting the board. How do you do that, you ask? Look at the lower right side of your board. You will see a small gray box with a reset button. Use a pen to press the button and hold it for a couple of second.

Flashing red or amber light: SMART calls this a "problem state". Reset your board (see above).

Hopefully these quick troubleshooting tips will help the next time to come across one of these problems.

Creating a Simple Page

This video demonstrates how to create a very simple Notebook page. You could have several pages similar to this in one document.

Using the Pen Tray

The pen tray is located on the front of your SMART Board. You have a black, red, green, and blue pen, one eraser, and two buttons. In an earlier post we discussed that you can press the two buttons together to get the Orient screen. By themselves, the buttons will perform a right-click, or bring up the onscreen keyboard. For the pens and eraser, all you have to do is pick up one of these objects to use it. A light will come on in its place and the tool is ready to use. You can be using any computer application. For example the pens and eraser can be used while on the Internet, a Word document, PowerPoint, or SMART Notebook.

You can easily customize these objects by clicking the SMART icon in your desktop pen tray and choosing "Control Panel". From the Control Panel you choose "SMART Hardware Settings" and then the pens and buttons option. I like to change my green pen to a highlighter so that I have one easily accessible whenever I need it. This is easy to do by simple choosing the green pen and changing the transparency. The buttons can be customized as well to perform functions such as print screen or open Notebook.

New School Year

It has been a whirlwind of activity around here the last few weeks. School started for us right after my last post. Things are starting to settle down and become routine now. I will try to do much better at updating this blog to keep you informed on all things SMART.
For those of you who are also starting the new school year, what are you doing with your SMART Board?