Posts made in July 27th, 2009

Storynory and Smartboard / Promethean resources

Posted on Jul 27, 2009 in Interactive Whiteboards, Literacy Resources, Useful Links | 2 comments

Storynory is an online treasure trove of audio stories. The site contains a mixture of new stories, fairy tales, and specially adapted myths and histories. They have published an audio story every week since November 2005 which are free to download and use.

The stories are read by Natasha Gostwick and her clear story-telling voice has won a place in the hearts of children and adults all over the world. The amazing artwork is produced by a friend of mine, the very talented Sophie Green.

StoryNory allows you to download their audio files to use in your classroom. It’s well worth a visit. You could add these stories to your own IWB resources if you wanted to.

I have been given special permission to use the images and sounds from Storynory to produce an Interactive Whiteboard resource. I have only produced one for now, as a proof of concept, but if it goes down well then I’ll make some more.

The resources include the large images with sound, plus the text of the story as well as some pages to provoke class activities and discussion.

You can find the download page over here on my Think Bank website. I’ve produced a Powerpoint version as well as an ActivInspire (note, not earlier versions) and Smart Notebook 10 version.

The audio and images are copyright StoryNory so please check their website for their terms of use.

If this is something that you like, then leave a comment below and I’ll look into producing some more.

And thanks again to Storynory for giving me permission to use their material in this way! Go check out their site now!

Smartboard updates – Gallery Collections and Notebook Search

Posted on Jul 27, 2009 in SMARTboards, Useful Links | 0 comments

Here are two new updates to the Smart website that teachers will find very useful.

Smart Gallery Collections

The new SMART Gallery collections is now live. These are themed compilations of copyright cleared objects which you can download and add to your Smart Notebook gallery. You can see the list of resources here.

Finding Smart Notebook Resources

If you are looking for Smart Notebook files produced by teachers around the world, it’s now possible to search by keyword using SMART Notebook Lesson Search. This is powered by the Google Custom Search service.

This tool enables educators to search over 30 public websites to find SMART Notebook lesson activities created by teachers. Currently, there are more than 1,500 SMART Notebook files available on these sites.

The search tool can be found at www.smarttech.com/notebookfiles.

Another way to find files is to use Google to search for .notebook (or older .nbk and .xbk) files which can also provide some useful results.

Happy Searching!

Science Songs from They Might be Giants

Posted on Jul 27, 2009 in Activity Ideas, Science Resources | 0 comments

I’ve always been a fan of using songs to introduce science concepts, and there’s tonnes of possibilities to choose from. From proper “commercial” songs to stuff like Simple Science Videos.

Two I liked to use include They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse in Your Soul (electricity/energy) and Particle Man.

Well, it turns out that They Might Be Giants are releasing a new CD / DVD of Science songs and videos called Here Comes Science with catchy tunes about the periodic table, photosynthesis, the planets, the color spectrum and more.

Song titles include “Meet the Elements,” “Roy G. Biv,” “Photo Synthesis,” “Speed and Velocity and “The Ballad of Davey Crockett in Outer Space”. The CD will come bundled with a DVD of videos too.

Here’s a track they did previously – Why Does the Sun Shine:

Now there’s an updated version of Why Does the Sun Shine with the line -” The Sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma”

I can’t find mention of the album on the usual UK sites I buy CD’s from, so it may be something to look for on import from the US. It’s definitely worth looking out for when it gets released sometime in the Autumn.

Thanks to Jennifer Ouellette and David Bruggeman for the heads-up on this via their blogs.

For other songs – how about “Danger High Voltage” by Electric Six for an electricity lesson (but don’t show the video). For space lessons “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse or “Man on the Moon” by REM. Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” for a lesson about Sound – or Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize”?

Play them as the students come into the room