One of the issues that I find when I go into schools to deliver Smart or Promethean whiteboard training is that quite often the software on teachers computers is not installed completely. The software will work fine, but the bank of resources that’s comes as part of the install is often missing.
This is a real shame as, on both Smart and Promethean boards, the gallery contains loads of very useful images and interactive resources that can add additional impact to your lesson resources.
I find that it’s an unknown unknown situation – most teachers don’t know the resource library should be there – so they don’t know what they are missing out on. And often when it’s installed the technicians don’t know to install it either. So it’s only when a whiteboard trainer comes in that they can see what they’re missing.
So, if you are a Smart or Promethean user, here’s what to look out for.
Smart Notebook 10
In Smart Notebook, click on the 2nd tab on the side of the screen – it looks like a picture frame – to open the gallery. You should hopefully have a folder called Gallery Essentials. It might, in earlier installs, be called Essentials for Educators. Click on the plus to the side of the folder to open it up and see the subfolders.
You should also have a second folder called Lesson Activity Toolkit. This contains lots of different interactive resources which can be used to build simple interactive activities such as sorting, labelling and hangman games.
A cut down gallery is normally always installed – this is the Gallery Sampler. It contains a small fraction of some of the resources of the rest of the gallery.
If the gallery essentials is not there – you can try and install it yourself by doing a “Check for updates” from the help menu – but this may not always work on a school install where the admins have locked things down.
I’d suggest you point your network technicians to the Administrator Downloads page where they can download the Gallery Essentials and Lesson Activity Toolkit as zip files and install them sitewide.
Promethean ActivInspire – Studio View
In ActivInspire the resources are known as Shared Resources. In Studio view it can be found on the Resource Browser on the side of the screen – click on the image of the clapperboard/musical note and then the image of the multiple heads. If you can’t seen the browser, then make it appear by going to View and then Browsers.
Click on the plus to open up each category – the bulk of the clip art and subject resources should be found in a folder called Subjects. You might also want to look in Grids for various graph papers.
If the subject resources are not here you should be able to download the Resources file via Promethean Planet here.
ActivInspire – Primary View
In ActivInspire Primary mode the resources are slightly different to Studio mode. You can open it by clicking on the clapperboard/musical note icon from the toolbar on the right hand side of the screen.
The Resource Gallery will open at the bottom of the screen. You might not see anything in there yet. In the bottom right of the screen you should see a yellow button with a triangle on it. Click that to open up the index of resources. The button with several heads on it should open the shared resources. Like the studio mode the subject resources should be there under Subjects.
If the subject resources are not here you should be able to download the Resources file via Promethean Planet here.
So that’s it – do check your gallery is installed. And if it isn’t have a word with the network technician about getting it installed. Send them a link to this page.
Good luck!
Don’t forget, for Promethean training check out my Think Bank website.
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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