Posts made in July 17th, 2010

Easiteach Next Generation

Posted on Jul 17, 2010 in Interactive Whiteboards | 4 comments

Easiteach Next Generation is the latest version of the whiteboard software from RM/Lightbox. Now I’ll nail my colours to the mast early. I am a Smart and Promethean person. I have also loved their software equally above anything else I’ve used out there. Mimio, Ebeam and Starboard software just didn’t have the features and ease-of-use that the big two have had since their very early days. One piece of software that I had mixed feeling about was RM Easiteach. In some places it was very nice, but in others it still lacked the tools of Smart & Promethean. I remember writing a (sadly defunct) training package that featured all three, and there were many things Smart and Promethean software could do that Easiteach couldn’t.

I was interested then to hear of a new version of Easiteach that is on its way. And even luckier to be sent an early trial version to take a look at. It looks a little slicker than the older version I last looked at a few years ago now. The trial version I had is still under development, so didn’t have every feature in place.

Menus are reasonably clear, with coloured icons placed at the bottom of the screen for younger students (or shorter teachers!) to reach. Object manipulation on the page is simple, with large clear anchor points around each object.

Tools such as handwriting and shape recognition are still there. A feature that the others don’t do yet is Text to Speech, which is nice. Although not sure how useful most schools will find it.

A new feature is the Widget Bank. Flash items that run on the page such as calculator, clock, periodic table, protractor, picture reveal, dice, random item generator, navigator and more. There are currently 20+ widgets available in the bank with more to be added with each new release. Moving and resizing these on the page is simpler than Smart Notebook.

The localised and searchable media bank within Easiteach will comprise over 4,500 curriculum-based resources including over 70 videos.

Users are able to record sound and video directly on to a page. Using the media bank you can also capture images, record sounds and record videos using external hardware, such as microphones or digital cameras, and add them to your page and then also add them to your personal media bank.

Tools that I couldnt find include Desktop Capture – which I still think is a massive omission, as well as desktop annotation.  Desktop capture should be there though. I found I couldn’t even copy and paste an image from the web and paste it in, or even drag it in. There’s no reason for such a fundamental omission. I could save images to a folder, then import or import from scanner or camera into my image bank then putting onto the page, but thats not the same and is a little too cumbersome.

Screenshade and Spotlight tool are also things that any self-respecting IWB software should have. No idea why these are missing. Hopefully they’ll be in the final version. There’s a whole “special effects” icon that as yet does nothing, but says coming soon.. so hope they’re on there.

Easiteach works on all brands of interactive whiteboards – as long as you buy a licence. The ability to import and export Easiteach documents as the common IWB file format  “.iwb files” should also mean that in theory you can share and use resources created on other software packages – should Smart and Promethean adopt the .iwb format too.

On the whole I like it, but for now I’ll be sticking with Smart and Promethean. If I was stuck in a school with Hitachi boards, and wanted to buy something that I could legally use on the board then I’d consider Easiteach. I’m not happy about some of the basics that are still missing, but hopefully they’ll be there in the finished version. It’s always hard getting an opinion from a not-quite-complete version. Once the finished product is done I’ll take another look.

You can download a 30 day trial of the software here: http://www.easiteach.com/eng/trial/ so go and take a look and see what you think!

Pay it forward

Posted on Jul 17, 2010 in Interactive Whiteboards | 4 comments

A few years ago I was on a Train the Trainers day. The chap delivering the training showed us all quite a few nice examples of things to do on Smartboards, one or two I hadn’t seen before, and one or two that were nice variations on a theme. At the end of the training we asked him for a copy of his file so we could incorporate it into our own days. He said no. He’d spent ages making them and didn’t feel happy giving them away. It would be best if we made our own versions… I was gobsmacked. We were working for same company, it wasn’t like we were rival trainers or anything.

I was reminded of this recently when I saw a page I had written appear in someone elses demonstration. It was using a photograph I had taken so was pretty distinctive. More than happy to see that, not a problem. Was quite pleased that they’d liked it so much they wanted to use it. What did surprise me was that when one of the other people in the room asked for a copy, the trainer said no. They’d rather not share something they were using in a current course.

This got me thinking about the way that I share stuff, and expect it to be shared. I’ve always shared the materials I’ve written, ever since I started teaching. One of my earliest web sites back in 1996/1997 contained zip files of worksheets I had written (which – scarily – is still online and gathering dust). Sometimes I’d share stuff with the world whether the world wanted it or not! When I moved out of teaching into teacher training I still produced materials and put them on my site to download. That’s just what I do.

Anyone coming to any of my training courses will get a CD of resources – often far more stuff than I really should be passing on. You will also find a lot of it on this blog too. But if I can help teachers to get started with using whiteboards and other tech then I’m happy to do that.

But I have an expectation. And maybe I haven’t stressed that enough on here, and on my download pages. I’ve mentioned before that I am a big fan of Creative Commons. I love the idea behind share and share alike. And there’s a fantastic community of educators who all share their resources readily with everyone who wants it. It’s great to see.

So here’s the deal. All of my material is distributed under a Creative Commons license. Attribution/Share Alike. It’s always been that way, take a look at the very bottom of the blog, it says so down there, next to the stuff about guinness and chocolate, that’s true too

I really want you to take what I’ve done and mash it up. Adapt it for your subject. Rework, adapt and adopt. You get the idea. Or even just use it as-is. Any of that is fine with me. I’m not protective of it – please use it. It’s why I share it – for you to use. I want you to have it, and I’m thrilled when I see it used. In no way am I saying – don’t use my stuff.

But….

If you use my stuff in your lesson materials, or your training materials, then the deal is that you make it freely available to everyone else who wants a copy. Put in on your school network. Pass it to your colleagues on a USB stick. Put it on a site for download. Use DropBox. Email it to them. Tell them where you got it and give them the link. Whatever. But don’t hoard it.

Even better – I’d love to see the stuff you make with it. I want to see some of the ways you adapt them for your own subject. Email me, contact me via twitter or just comment on this blog. I hope, through sharing the stuff on this site, that I can inpsire you to make things for yourself. I’ve been chuffed with the response to posts like my Lesson Starter ideas. If you don’t have any webspace and / or don’t want the hassle, email it to me and I can host it here.

Become a sharer yourself. Pay it forward.