Now What? Training

Tips

Orienting the SMART Board

Creating and storing Team Content

Creating the 'Magic Box'

Downloading the AFL Gallery

Downloading the 'Word Guess' Tomato Splat

Downloading the Deleted LAT Tools

Inserting Videos into SMART Notebook

Orienting the SMART Board™

When writing on the SMART Board it should look as if the ink is coming from the pen or the end of your finger. If this is not happening then you need to orient or align the SMART Board. There are a few ways to do this:

1. Press the Keyboard button and the Right Mouse button down together. These buttons can be found on the pen tray either at the front of the SMART Board (600 series) or on the right hand side (500 series).

2. Click on to the SMART Board icon in the Systems Tray and select the Orient option.

Which ever method you choose, you will now be presented with a number of crosses on the screen. Most schools use 9 Orient points.

To change the number of Orient points, click on the SMART Board icon in the Systems Tray and select the Control Panel option. The Control Panel can also be accessed by clicking on the wrench on the SMART Board Tools panel. When you have opened the Control Panel, select the 'SMART Board Settings'. Click on the drop down arrow next to the 'Hardware Info & Settings'. Select Orientation/Alignment Settings. Select 'Standard 9 Points'. Four points may not be accurate enough for writing in a classroom setting. Twenty points is very accurate but too time consuming if you need to orient regularly. Twelve points should only be used with a wide screen SMART Board (690).

To Orient the board touch into each of the the yellow dots in the centre of the cross. For increased accuracy this can be done with a pen from the pen tray. The more accurate you are the more accurate the SMART Board will be. The Orientation comes from the point where you lift OFF your finger or pen so if you are having trouble aiming for the yellow dot, place the pen near it on the board then (without lifting the pen) move the pen to the yellow dot.

SMART Board Orientation is very dependent on the classroom surroundings. Movement in the room whether it be from a vibrating Air Conditioner, a second storey on the building or opening and closing doors may move the image and hence put the SMART Board out of Orientation. The stability of the projector is the most important aspect so it needs to be securely mounted. Many schools only need to Orient their SMART Boards about once a week but other schools accept the limitations that their buildings present and have a student monitor quickly orient the SMART Board before each teaching session. The SMART Board will also need to be reoriented when the computer or laptop is changed.

For questions on Orienting your SMART Board, email us at info@nowwhattraining.com.au .

Creating and storing Team Content

Storing Gallery items in Team Content enables staff to personalise the Gallery in SMART Notebook and share their Gallery items with others in a school.

1. On a shared drive within the school Network, create a new Folder. Call it Team Content or something that will identify it. (Ideally the drive should have Teacher - Read and Write privileges, but Student - Read Only. Alternatively the Permissions for the folder can be changed.) 2. Click on to the Gallery tab and then the Gallery Action tool (the yellow wrench). Select the 'Connect to Team Content' option. Navigate to the Team Content Folder in your network. Click OK. The following box will come up. Click on 'Yes'. Your Gallery will now have an extra option. If a different user logs onto the computer they will need to navigate again to the Team Content folder.

3. Click on the drop down arrow on the Team Content line to create new folders to organise your content. 4. The folder is now ready for Gallery items. When you open up SMART Notebook, insert (or copy and paste) onto the SMART Notebook page the images or flies that you wish to add to the Team Content. With the destination folder open, drag the items into the bottom half of the Gallery area.
5. These items are now available to all computers within the network that have linked to the Team Content. 6. Items or whole Gallery collections can also be dragged from the My Content area to the Team Content area for greater sharing. 7. Permission to add to, modify and view the contents of the Team Content Folder will depend on the permissions for the Drive where the Team Content folder is stored.

Creating the 'Magic Box'

The Magic Box activity can be used by students to sort, classify and to create and test hypotheses. It is futher documented by Dave Miller in 'The Magic Box - Enhancing Interactivity' .

1. The 'Magic Box' can be a 'box' (a cardboard box can be found in the Gallery) or any other image such as a hat.
2. Drag / copy the image onto the SMART Notebook page. Colour the background at this stage if you wish.
3. Click on the Screen Capture Toolbar (looks like a Camera). Ensure the 'Capture to New Page' tick is off.
4. Use the rectangular setting to 'take a picture' of the front of the box / hat.
5. Move the picture of the front panel over the original image and resize if necessary to accurately cover the image. It should look like one image even though it is made up of two layers.

6. Place on the SMART Notebook page the objects that you wish to sort. They may be text, images or numerals.
7. Decide which objects will go into the box / hat.
8. Select them individually or in groups and the Rotate, Resize handles and the drop down arrow will appear.
9. From the drop down arrow, select 'Order' and 'Send to Back'.
10. On the original box / hat image, select the drop down arrow and select 'Order' and 'Send to Back'. Then select the drop down arrow and choose 'Locking' and 'Lock in place'. This image is now set on the back of the page.
11. Lock the front panel of the image in place in the same way.

12. The items selected will now 'go into the box' while the others will slide over the top.
13. Use the 'Order' feature and 'Send to Back' and 'Bring to Front' to swap the objects that will go into the box / hat.

Downloading the AFL Gallery Collection

Click here to download the AFL Gallery collection. Save it.

Click on the Gallery Collection icon where you have saved it and drag it into either the My Content or the Team Content area. Alternatively you can double click on the icon and it will automatically populate into your My Content area.

Downloading the 'Tomato Splat' Gallery Collection

The first Lesson Activity Toolkit contained a Tomato Splat file where tomatoes were thrown at the teacher when a correct letter was chosen. The newer version of 'Word Guess' in the LAT allows you to put in more words and clues but the teacher has been removed. Click here to download the old 'Word Guess - Tomato Splat' Gallery collection. Save it.

Downloading the Deleted Tools Gallery Collection

Some more of the Lesson Activity ToolKit objects have been removed in later versions. This file contains tomato splat, the swirling vortex, angular pull tabs, simple buttons and Title pages with pull tabs. Click here to download the 'Deleted tools'.

Linking Learning Objects to SMART Notebook files

Learning Objects are hundreds of Flash files (many produced by the Learning Federation) that can be used with students to demonstrate and reinforce a range of learning outcomes from Junior Primary to Senior Secondary. Each Education Sector has undertaken to distribute them to their schools. Independent and Catholic Schools receive a DVD of the Learning Objects and this is usually stored on a server to enable easy access to the files. Teachers in DECS schools have access to the Learning Objects as well as hundreds of other digital files through Scootle. See your IT person for the Logon and Password.

When you have found the Learning Object you wish to use:

To insert into SMART notebook and log onto the Internet:

Click on the title to access the item summary and then click on the title in the Attachments area to view the file.
Copy the URL from the address bar.
Open SMART Notebook and click on whatever you want to activate the Learning object. From the drop down (the arrow), choose 'Link'.
Paste in the URL. If you want a link (small globe) to be shown, leave as is. If you want the fact that it is a link to be hidden, click on 'Object'. Click on OK.

To insert into SMART notebook without logging onto the Internet:

Click on the title to access the item summary.
In the attachment area, click on Download Package.
Save it into the a folder of your choice. (If at school, you may like to create a 'Learning Objects' folder on your network where every teacher can store their downloaded Learning Objects.)
Navigate to where you have saved the package.
If it has come down as a 'Zipped File', right mouse click on it and choose 'Extract all'. It will place all of the resources into a file of the same name but with out the zip.
Open SMART Notebook and click on whatever you want to activate the Learning Object. From the drop down (the arrow), choose 'Link'.
Choose 'File on this computer' and browse to where you have unzipped the downloaded package. Click on the 'Index' icon and then Open.
Select 'Shortcut to file' NOT 'Copy of file'.
If you want a link (small globe) to be shown, leave as is. If you want the fact that it is a link to be hidden, click on 'Object'. Click on OK.

Inserting Videos into SMART Notebook

SMART Notebook readily accepts .flv videos. Click on the Insert > Flash Video File.
By downloading MediaCoder onto the computer, SMART Notebook will accept a variety of files including .avi files. MPEG4 files will still become attachments to a SMART Notebook file.

For instructions on how to download and insert videos from You Tube click here.

For instructions on how to download and insert videos from Teacher Tube, click here.

Australian Currency

Click here to download the Australian Currency Gallery collection. Save it.

Click on the Australian Currency Gallery Collection icon where you have saved it and drag it into either the My Content or the Team Content area. Alternatively you can double click on the icon and it will automatically populate into your My Content area.

Audacity

Audacity is a free to download program that allows you to record sound. The sound can then be exported as an MP3 and inserted into SMART Notebook. To export it as an MP3, you will need a Lame.dll file.