Doctor Who Trailer Maker

Doctor Who has been a part of my life since I was a kid, hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks came on the screen. The "new" series is now on Season 4 and I've been really enjoying it so far, even if it does have that awful Tate lady (TATL) as an assistant.

The BBC have embraced a lot of the interactive features of the Internet, and their Doctor Who website is no exception.

The Comic Maker was pretty cool but I really like their Trailer Maker.

It allows you to make a 30 second trailer using clips, music and sound effects and then save your effort to share with others. It's great fun and has great potential for using with a class.

You can see my quick effort here. It's not much, but gives you an idea of what you can do with it.

I have a feeling the site won't be accessible outside the UK I'm afraid. But for UK teachers - get your class creating!

Magic Pen Game

No, not related to my earlier post about the Smart Magic Pen, but more related to my post about Phun the other week.

Thanks to Science Punk for linking to another fun little Real Physics application called Magic Pen.

Magic Pen is like Phun in that you use a crayon to draw objects that then behave on the screen as if they were real. Balls roll, oblongs topple down under gravity etc. This time, there's an actual objective. You need to get the little ball to the flag. You might need to just roll a ball into it to make it move, or you could build a more complex solution.

It's very neat, and would be great on an IWB as a lesson starter activity.

Play Magic Pen here: http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/

The Magic Pen

One of the small niggles I had with Smart 9 was that there was no spotlight tool on the toolbar in Smart Notebook. I know you could get it via the floating toolbar, but it annoyed me that I couldn't get it quickly in Notebook without having to use workarounds.

So I was really happy when I was first shown a beta of Smart Notebook 10 with the tool called the Magic Pen.

The Magic Pen is brilliant.

If you write with the Magic Pen it stays on the screen for a few seconds and then fades away. This is great for adding quick annotations that you don't want to last - underlining an area on the screen, circling a key point etc.

If you draw a circle on the screen with the Magic Pen then it automatically turns into a Spotlight tool! This is my favourite!

If you draw a rectangle on the screen it will turn into a magnifyer - making an area of the screen larger. Good for making text larger such as web addresses etc.

Here's a quick video that shows how to use the Magic Pen. I made this with the beta but couldn't show them due to the NDA, which is why it talks about being the second video... I can't find part 1!!

http://www.screencast.com/t/WBCypM5Pcn0

The IWB Challenge

I just wanted to direct you to the blog of Jess McCulloch who has decided that April is Interactive Whiteboard month and has been writing about her use of the IWB to teach Modern Foreign Languages. Read part 3 here, which has links to the previous posts.

As well as Jess, three other teachers at My Languages, The Langwitch Chronicles and Sans Problemes have also taken up the IWB challenge and written about their experiences. I'm looking forward to seeing more as they continue the challenge.

This has also been linked to the Passion Quilt meme, where teachers blog about what they are most passionate about in education. Again, well worth a look.

There is a growing network of inspirational teachers sharing their ideas on the Internet for others to use to develop their own teaching. I always love stumbling across a new one, there are some truly inspirational ones out there.

Animoto Education Program

I've talked about Animoto before in the last few months(here and here), and I think it's a great way of producing professional-looking slideshows.

Even better now is the announcement of an Animoto Education Program. This is great news and means that educators can use Animoto with their classes for free!

Contact Rebecca at Animoto via the address on this page to find out more.

Smart Notebook 10 Toolbar

I've always found it useful when doing IWB training to give teachers a sheet with all the icons on the toolbar and what they do. Many teachers like to print this off and stick it on the wall next to their IWB.

Here is my new guide to the Smart Notebook 10 toolbar. If you want, you can download it as a pdf file here.



In the future I'll do a post that explains what each of these buttons actually does.

In Plain English

Here are some great videos to watch because a) they use plain English and b) I love the clean presentation style. They cover some of the new Web 2.0 tools that have really enhanced the way people use the internet in the last few years.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English



Podcasting in Plain English



RSS in Plain English


You can find all their videos, covering Twitter, Social Networking, Photo Sharing and, erm.. Zombies on YouTube here. Or go to the CommonCraft site to download high res versions to use elsewhere.

My Extended Memory

I have an average memory. I mean, it's OK but it's nothing special. I can remember birthdays and I can quote whole chunks of Eddie Izzard routines but I do tend to forget things. I'm bad at remembering hardware specs and prices. I often forget the web address of that great site I just saw in a teachers magazine.

So my memory needs a little help sometimes. Luckily technology can help me. In the form of my mobile phone.

I don't always have a pen or a piece of paper with me. or if I have written it down I may not have that bit of paper on me when I need it. But I always have my phone with me. Which means I always have a camera with me. And this is where it can really help.

I see a web address in an article or on a poster that looks interesting. Simple, I get out my phone and I take a photograph of it. I see a new digital camera in a store and I want to go home and check out the reviews and price-compare online. Easy, I just take a photo of the shelf label and look it up when I get home. Most modern phone cameras act as pretty good document cameras.

A domestic example; I need to buy some more washing and proofing products for my Ski gear to get it ready for next season. I always get mixed up which products we need. So I took a photo of the bottles. Next time I find myself in a ski store I can just look up the image on my phone and buy the right products. The chances are that any piece of paper will have long been lost by the time I end up in a store.

The camera in my phone acts as a memory enhancer. I'm quite a visual learner and I need visual reminders. I could type things into my phone too, although I find that can be slower than a photo. I do make use of the Notes feature in Outlook (which syncs to my phone) for longer notes and reminders of work-related addresses and passwords.

There are other features in the phone that I could also use - the voice memo feature for example, but I haven't made much use of that yet. And there are many web2.0 sites like Remember the Milk etc that can help with to-do lists if you want to take it to another level.

I do try and remember these things normally too. I don't see myself as a slave to my phone. But the technology helps to make my life just that little bit easier. And prevents our kitchen filling up with uneeded products!

How could we harness some of this in the classoom? As a science teacher, I can see ways we could use them in the science lesson. Want kids to remember the apparatus set up? Easy, take a photograph of it. Maybe take a video of the trolley going down the ramp or the weights on the spring. Use the voice memo to record the results as they read them out. Get them to add important dates such as coursework deadlines or homework into the calendar of the phone.

Some kids could aid their revision by using their PC to record themselves reading out important facts they need to know for their exams. They can put it onto their phone/iPod as an MP3 file and listen to it on the way to and from school....

An extreme example maybe, but some students could benefit from taking a new look at the computing power they routinely carry in their pockets.

The Internet itself also acts as a way for me to extend (and share) my memory. I use my del.icio.us feed to add websites that I want to remember. Tags help me search for them later. If I have found a good website that I haven't got a lot of time to look at, I can add it to del.ico.us and then access it later on when I have more time. I may not be on the same computer or even in the same location, so a standard bookmark isn't going to help.

On training days, I am often asked for lists of good websites. I used to do this in Word. But you can guarantee that as soon as you print it off you find several more you could have added. Dynamic bookmark lists such as del.ico.us or Diig means I can share the lists with people and know they have the most recent version. Tags mean I can direct trainees on my whiteboard days to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/iwb and my PGCE students to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/pgce.

Similarly I use my blog and forum as a brain dump. Many posts are morefor my benefit than for my readers. It's nice to share though, so if others also find the links useful then that's great.

So taking this all into account I actually have a very good memory. But it's not all inside my head!

TeachMeet08 North East London

I'm really hoping to be able to attend the next TeachMeet in a few weeks time.

TeachMeet is a chance to share what has and is effective, exciting and innovative technology in our schools in an informal environment.

The details of the event are:

Redbridge Teachers Centre
Melbourne Road
Ilford, IG1 4HT
6:00pm- 9:30pm

More information can be found here. If you want to attend, you need to edit the Wiki to add your name to the list.

It sounds like a fun event and I look forward to meeting everybody there!

YAYTB

or.. Yet Another You Tube Downloader

ConvertTube is yet another website that will let you download YouTube videos and save them as different file formats to use offline. Again, handy for teachers that can't get YouTube at school.

http://www.converttube.com/

Thanks to Lisa Thumann for the link.

IWB Research

I'm using this post as a bit of a brain-dump to collate some research articles. I haven't read any of them yet, but am linking them here to remind me to start going through them.

The ICT Impact Report: A Review of Studies of ICT Impact on Schools in Europe.
http://insight.eun.org/shared/data/pdf/impact_study.pdf

MILLER, D. J. (2006). The magic box – enhancing interactivity, Mathematics Teaching, 197, pp. 28-31. http://www.atm.org.uk/mt/archive/mt197files/ATM-MT197-28-31.pdf

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., AVERIS, D., & DOOR, V. (2005). From technology to professional development: How can the use of an interactive whiteboard in initial teacher education change the nature of teaching and learning in secondary mathematics and modern languages? Training and Development agency, London. Report made to the Teacher Training Agency.
http://www.ttrb.ac.uk/attachments/0d65acf3-488a-4fca-8536-918d6dafd694.pdf

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., & AVERIS D. (2005). Developing Pedagogic Skills for the Use of the Interactive Whiteboard in Mathematics, British Educational Research Association, Glamorgan
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ed/iaw/docs/BERA%20Paper%20Sep%202005.pdf

MILLER, D.J., GLOVER, D., & AVERIS D. (2005). Presentation and pedagogy: the effective use of interactive whiteboards in mathematics lessons. In Hewitt, D. & Noyes, A., Proceedings of the sixth British Congress of Mathematics Education, BSRLM proceedings, vol. 25 (1), pp. 105-112. London: British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics.
http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip25-1/BSRLM-IP-25-1-14.pdf

GLOVER, D., MILLER, D.J & AVERIS D. (2004) Panacea or prop: the role of the interactive whiteboard in improving teaching effectiveness, the Tenth International Congress of Mathematics Education, Copenhagen
http://www.icme-organisers.dk/tsg15/Glover_et_al.pdf

Interactive Whiteboards and Learning: A Review of Classroom Case Studies and Research Literature
http://dewey.uab.es/pmarques/pdigital/es/docs/Research%20White%20Paper.pdf
(SMART Technologies Inc. , Apr 2004)

MILLER, D.J & GLOVER, D. (2001) Missioners, Tentatives and Luddites: leadership challenges for school and classroom posed by the introduction of interactive whiteboards into schools in the United Kingdom, part of the Symposium: New Technologies and Educational Leadership at the British Educational Management and Administration Society Conference, Newport Pagnell, UK.
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ed/iaw/Missioners.pdf

Delivering E-Learning Using Interactive Whiteboards
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/whiteboards.htm
(E-Learning Centre, United Kingdom, 2004)

List of resources on interactive whiteboards and how to use them.

What the Research Says About Interactive Whiteboards.
http://web.archive.org/web/20061208064641
(British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA)ICT Research, Coventry, U.K., 2003)

How is the Interactive Whiteboard Being Used in the Primary School and How Does This Affect Teachers and Teaching
http://www.virtuallearning.org.uk/whiteboards/IFS_Interactive_whiteboards_in_the_primary_school.pdf
Cogill, Julie. (Virtual Learning, 2002)

Interactive Whiteboards.
http://www.peterli.com/spm/resources/articles/archive.php?article_id=1705
Kollie, Ellen
Explains features of interactive whiteboards, illustrated with cases where they have helped students who are mildly learning disabled, autistic, or have low test scores.
School Planning and Management; v47 n1 , p88-90 ; Jan 2008

Whiteboards Inc. Interactive Features Fuel Demand for Modern Chalkboards.
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02board.h01.html
Davis, Michelle R.
Digital Directions; Sep 12, 2007

The Case for Interactive White Boards in the Classroom
http://www.scholarsearchassoc.com/MICRA020503.htm
DeCraene, Tom
Scholar Search Associates; 2006

How Can You Use Research Evidence to Enhance your Mathematics Teaching?
NCETM 2007
http://www.ncetm.org.uk/files/140592/NCETM+Evidence+Bulletin.pdf

Embedding ICT in the Literacy and Numeracy Stages.
Higgins et al. Newcastle University (2005)
http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/univ_newcastle_evaluation_whiteboards.pdf

Articles taken from here and here. Others are included on this list that I haven't linked to, but may be useful. When I get round to it, I'll try and draw some of these together.

Do schools kill creativity?

Here's an inspring talk by Sir Ken Robinson. Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize, much less cultivate, the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity,"

I don't think we know the solution yet, but the video makes you think.

Why IWB

I stupidly got into an argument on the TES forum yesterday with two guys who are not in favour of IWB's and have made their feelings clear on several threads. They wanted to be convinced as to what the IWB could offer over and above just presenting using a laptop and data projector.

I thought it might be useful to add my thoughts here as well.

Here is my response;

I have no doubt that you can do a lot with a PC and a data-projector - even more so if you couple that with a wireless mouse/keyboard and wireless slate which could be passed around the class.

And for showing video clips, powerpoint presentations etc, this is fine. If you want the students to sit and watch something.

The Review Project, when they looked into the use of IWBs said this

*****************************
Anecdotally, teachers who have taught firstly with a data projector and then with the addition of a whiteboard all say that they would feel very awkward having to return to their computer each time they want to do something on screen. One remarked that he didn’t feel part of the class when working on his computer. The students are looking at the screen while the teacher is talking somewhere else in the class. With a IWB the focal point is both the teacher and the screen.
*****************************

With just projector and laptop the lesson is disjointed. Kids are focussing on one area of the classroom while the teacher is in another. An IWB puts the teacher at the focal point alongside the materials

With a laptop and projector there is more chance of the teacher just "presenting" and pupils being spectators. The boards allow better interaction with the materials - annotating over the top.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of training, teachers still use the IWB to present and there is little interactivity.

Like I said, I agree there is other tech out there too - a tablet PC and projector could do a lot of what is done on an IWB in terms of annotation, interaction, but again you still have the disjointed classroom.

And I say again, It's not about the clipart - you're taking a point I made out of context. But for some teachers, having a ready made resource bank that they can quickly access really helps speed up the creation of lesson materials. The Smart Lesson Activity Toolkit with its interactive flash games, or some of the Promethean flash materials and see how they could be used for lesson starters and plenaries. Yes you can find these online if you know where to look, but many teachers don't have the time to do this

A lot of boards are being used badly, by teachers who haven't been trained on how to get the most out of them, or who just want to "present" to a class rather than interact with them. This needs to be addressed with CPD.

Take a look at the blogs that are appearing from young teachers who have embraced this tech and are doing some amazing things with it to enhance the teaching and learning of whatever subject they are delivering. All agree that there is something that the board adds that makes it more than just a projector

for example Joe Dale's blog: http://snipurl.com/251qt

More research articles (for and against) can be found here;
http://www.schoolfacilities.net/rl/interactive_whiteboards.cfm


If anyone else can post "a defence of the IWB" then it may be worth adding to the thread.

Smart Lesson Toolkit

A while back I wrote about the beta version of the Smart Lesson Activity Toolkit, which was a fantastic way of adding interactive elements to your Smart Notebook page.

Well, with the release of Smart Notebook 10, the full version of the Lesson Activity Toolkit has been released.

If you don't yet want to upgrade to version 10, but want the new Lesson Toolkit, then you can download it separately via this page. Installation instructions can be found there too as well as some videos on how to get the most out of it.

Smart Notebook 10 Released

Quick blog post as it's late as I've just been watching the season openers for Battlestar Galactica, my favourite show! But I wanted to get the following onto my blog, and will write more another time.

Anyway, The final release version of Smart Notebook 10 is now available for download!

You can download the software and any new drivers here.

Please note that the version on this page is a 30 day trial version, it looks like Smart are taking steps to stop people buying lesser whiteboards and running Smart Notebook on them. Be aware of this before upgrading version 9.7

To activate and get hold of the full version, you will need to know the serial number of your Smartboard (or other Smart product such as an Airliner slate) and visit the registration page. One serial number will do multiple installations - so you can still activate your classroom version and your home version for preparation purposes.

More information about Smart Notebook 10 when I get a chance tomorrow.

Update: Some more information, and a few new demos to watch on the new Smarttech Notebook page at: http://www.smarttech.com/notebook

Download YouTube Video

I've given a few links before to sites that allow you to download YouTube videos.

Well now I have another one to add to the list. This Script can be added to the toolbar of the Firefox web browser. When you see a video you want to save, click the button and then the page changes to allow you to save the file as an .mp4 video file.

All the instructions are on the page and it seems relatively straightforward. The thing to remember is to change the filename from .htm to .mp4 when you save it.

Obviously it goes without saying that you need to be aware that you may be infringing copyright by storing these clips - but this does provide a good workaround for those teachers who want to show a YouTube clip in a lesson where the school have blocked YouTube access.

Smart Seminars

If you are a school in the UK you may be interested to hear about a series of seminars that Steljes/Smart are running at venues around the UK. Or you can have the session come to you!

The sessions will focus on getting the most out of your Smart board as well as a demonstration of Smart Notebook 10 and Senteo, their new voting system. You can view a course agenda here.

These sessions are taking place during April/May in 5 locations around the UK. For more information on the locations, and to register a place then click here.

If the dates don't suit you, Steljes can also arrange to have an approved Smart trainer (like me!) come into your own school to run a twilight 60-90 minute session with your staff. Even better, if you arrange this as part of a cluster of 5 schools then they'll pay your school £100 as a hosting fee.

If you are based in the South-East of England, then there's a chance it will be me delivering this session. If that interests you, then get in touch with me and i can explain more. Otherwise get in touch with Steljes on 08450 724800 and they can explain more about this and organise a more local trainer for you.

If you have Smartboards in your school, and you feel you haven't been making the most effective use of them, or you feel you'd like to see what's new or maybe get a look at the Senteo voting kits, then its well worth getting in touch with Smart and having a free training session.

Video Screenshots

One of the really useful features of most IWB software is the ability to be able to take screenshots from videos and use them in your presentations. Both Smart Notebook and ActivStudio have a camera tool that allows quick screenshots to be made.

This can also be done using the Print Screen button on any computer and then pasting the resulting image into Word or Powerpoint.

One issue I often come across when demonstrating this to teachers is that instead of a picture from the video they get a black box instead. This mainly happens with avi or mpg files that open in Windows Media Player. Quicktime videos seem to work OK all the time.

There is a setting in Windows Media Player that you need to change to be able to take screen grabs. It's pretty straightforward, and once done should not need to be done again.

Firstly - open up a video file and right click on the icon in the bottom left corner of the window (It may look like a small thumbnail of the video):

From the menu that appears, choose Tools > Options

From the tabs at the top of the window, click on Performance and then the Advanced button.

From the window that appears, find the option for Use Video Mixing Renderer and click in the box next to Use Overlays to remove the tick.

Then click on OK a few times. When it asks you if you want to continue with the change click on Yes.

The video should now be able to be captured using either the Camera tool in the IWB software you are using, or with the Print Screen button (and then paste into whatever application you are using)

I have also created a Video Tutorial to show you how to do this. Apologies if the sound is a little quiet.



Hope this helps!

Effective Presentations

Here is my first attempt at using SlideShare to share a PowerPoint presentation I have used in the past.

The presentation covers some of the advice I give to teachers when using PowerPoint or Interactive Whiteboard software such as Smart Notebook or ActivStudio.

It's amazing how many teachers never check the IWB resources they make to see if they can actually be read from the back of their classroom. Often the text is too small, the background too busy and the colour combinations very bad.

This quick guide should help

| View | Upload your own

Next Generation Interfaces

Becta have just released the latest edition of their report into Emerging technologies for learning.

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends.

It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

You can access all the articles here, plus the previous editions.

One article of particular interest to this blog is the chapter entitled: Interactive displays and next generation interfaces by Michael Haller, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences. This is an interesting look at the history of the Interactive Whiteboard as we know it, and a look at some of the new technologies that may well replace or enhance it in the near future such as Interactive Tables, Interactive Paper and Digital Pens.

Download the pdf file here

Phun Phun Phun

I'd looked at Phun a while back, but back then I don't think it was ready to download. Thanks to Thom via Twitter I was reminded to take another look.

If you haven't seen it before, Phun is a 2d Interactive Physics sandbox. It allows you to draw objects in a world where the rules of gravity really apply (or not). You can draw freehand shapes or stick with squares and circles. You can fix objects in space and hang other objects from them using chains or springs. You can also add planes to have objects bounce and roll down them.

It's a small download, and even better, it's Free!

Here is Phun working on a Smartboard Interactive Whiteboard. It was great to be able to just draw shapes with my finger and watch them bounce and move around on the screen. Above I have drawn a square, fixed it in space and attached a ball on a spring. You can pull the ball around and watch it swing around.

This would be great to use in Physics lessons - investigating Forces and gravity, looking at springs and pendulums.

If you are stuck for things to do once you've opened Phun, there are lots of ready created scenes up on the Phun Wiki that will start you off. Using scenes that others have created will give you a better idea of what you can do with it.