Explania – instructional animations
Explania is a website which contains loads of animated explanations, interactive tutorials and instructional videos.
The site covers a wide range of topics from “What is Twitter?” to “The Human Heart” as well as software guides for MS Office and more. For example How to apply conditinal formatting in Excel 2007
It even tries to explain the offside rule in football:
What is offside in football? – Explania
It’s rather a strange mix of videos, some will be useful for teachers, whilst others might want to be avoided. But it is worth a look and you might find a few gems in there that you will find useful. Videos are pulled in from YouTube so if you school blocks YouTube you won’t be able to access the videos.
Thanks to Richard Byrne at Free Tech for Teachers for the link
Take a look at Explania and let me know what you think in the comments.
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Adobe Education Exchange – resources for teachers
The Adobe Education Exchange hosts a range of free, peer-reviewed teaching and learning resources, developed by Adobe Education Leaders, educators who are already integrating technology in to classes with great success who also use the Exchange themselves to find inspiration for creative teaching activities.
For example the site contains guidance on teaching code for games design and app development which supports collaborative learning, or lesson plans for effectively teaching photography students panoramic techniques.
For more information or to sign up to the Adobe Education Exchange visit: http://edexchange.adobe.com.
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Promethean ActivInspire Training Resources
Here’s a summary of the Promethean ActivInspire (and ActivStudio) training resources that you’ll find in the Guides section of this blog.
Promethean Helpsheets
- Using Desktop Tools in Activinspire
- Making an Anagram Starter in ActivInspire
- ActivSoftware Inspire Studio Toolbars
- ActivSoftware Inspire Primary Toolbars
- Activstudio 3 Toolbars
- ActivExpression voting guide
- Promethean ActivInspire – Adding Graph Paper and Grids
- Check your Interactive Whiteboard Gallery
- Moving between IWB Platforms
- Screencasting with IWB Software
- Creative use of colour in IWB files
- Lesson Starter Ideas for your Whiteboard
Promethean Training Videos
- Making an Anagram Game in ActivInspire
- Desktop Tools and Screen Capture in ActivInspire
- ActivSoftware Inspire Edition – A first look
I am working on some more guides and resources, watch this space!
Also take a look at the Promethean section of this blog, which has lots of other articles I’ve written that you might find useful.
Other websites
The official guides and resources can be found on PrometheanPlanet.
A great wiki of resources from Tom Cooper : http://promethean.york.wikispaces.net/su10training
Some useful resources from Technology Resource Teachers
The Promethean Playground : http://prometheanplayground.wikispaces.com/
Promethean ActivInspire CPD/INSET
Don’t forget, you can book me to deliver Promethean ActvInspire training, check out my Think Bank website or just get in touch for details.
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Embed HTML Codes into Promethean ActivInspire
With the latest update to Promethean’s ActivInspire software you can now use embed codes from YouTube (and other sites) and embed the video directly into your ActivInspire flipchart page.
First go to the YouTube video that you want, click on share, then copy the embed code (looks like both the old and new embed codes work)
Once you have copied the code, switch back to ActivInspire and click on Insert then Link and Embedded HTML
In the box that appears, paste the embed code
The video will then appear on your page as a moveable object. You can’t resize it, so make sure you grab the largest version of the embed code – click on the size before you copy the code.
Using this technique you can embed any YouTube video into the page. You’ll need YouTube access to play the video, and if the video gets removed from YouTube the link will be broken.
You can download and place YouTube videos using some of the various downloaders out there, if you download as a FLV file, but you will be in breach of the YouYube terms and conditions.
You will need to update your version of ActivInspire to the very latest version to be able to do this – to check if you have an update available go to Help and Check for Updates. You might also want to check you have the most recent version of Flash player too.
Have fun!
Don’t forget, for Promethean ActvInspire training check out my Think Bank website.
Update – I have tried this with Vimeo clips, but they didn’t work. I have successfully managed to embed the Random Name Picker and Arcade Game from the Classtools.net website. Try it with other embed codes and see how you go. If find any good ones, let me know in the comments!
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Promethean ActivInspire – Adding Graph Paper and Grids
One of the things that I often get asked by teachers when delivering whiteboard training sessions is how to get graph paper onto their whiteboard screens. With the old ActivStudio/ActivPrimary (and also in Smart Notebook) you had to select these grids from the resource library.
With ActivInspire this has been made a lot easier. The grid is always there on the page, it’s just hidden by default so you can’t see it. Although it’s simpler, it’s often a feature that is missed by most teachers – it’s not an entirely obvious way to get it. I thought it would be worth highlighting this method for Promethean ActivInspire users.
So here is how to get graph paper in Promethean ActivInspire. On the flipchart page where you want the grind, choose the selection tool (the arrow) then right click on the page and click on “Hide grid“. This will toggle between the grid being visible and being hidden.
This will make the grid appear. If you want more control over the size of the squares and the look of the grid then you can also access a grid designer menu.
To open the grid designer, right click on the page again and choose Grid Designer. A window will pop up.
In this window you can control the look of the grid. Click on the plus and minus buttons to make the squares larger or smaller.
Click Close when done.
If you want to have horizontal lines for writing on – change the Direction to Y only.
For diamond or isometric paper – change Grid Style to 45 degree, or choose Angle and define an angle for the diamonds.
If you choose Allow Snap then objects that you move on the page will line up to the nearest corner – good for lining things up on the screen. This works well with shapes but also lines and text boxes.
If you draw lines using the line tool, the lines will go from a corner to a corner – which helps when trying to draw neat diagrams in maths or Design and Tech.
You can even have “Allow Snap” turned on, but have the grid hidden. So text and shapes will align themselves on what appears to be a regular page.
With Allow Snap turned on, any shapes that you draw will be forced to match the size of a grid square – good for looking at areas.
And something else to try. Draw several squares, right click on each and select “drag a copy” to create a very fast pictogram/bar chart where each square will snap in place.
So that’s it. It’s quite quick to get graph paper in ActivInspire, you just have to know about the right click toolbar and the Grid Designer.
If you spend time setting up the axes of your graph with the line/arrow tool – you can then put this graph into your resource library. Right click on the page from the Page Browser at the side of the screen and choose Add to Resource Library and then Add Page to Resource Library. The page will then always be available to you from your area of the Resource Library. This is a good thing to do with any page template that you use a lot – from lesson objectives, tables etc.
For more ActivInspire Guides look in the Guides section of this website. And for information on thePromethean Promethean ActivInspire training I can offer, visit my Think Bank website to learn more.
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A Social Networking Guide for Trainee Teachers
Student teachers are in that awkward stage of making the transition from being a student to being a teacher. And although they still may be students they need to start taking a teachers approach to social networking from the moment they set foot in a school. The Billericay SCITT students have already had their first week in a school and many other PGCE students are on their first school placements this week.
That means locking down their Facebook account, especially all those student photographs – and also being aware of who they can and can’t add as friends. Also be aware of what you’re saying on sites such as Twitter and how those comments can be construed. Your comments can be found by parents, students and teaching colleagues.
The Know IT All website from Childnet provides a good guide to social networking for trainee teachers and NQT’s. You can access the guide here.
Qualified teachers (and parents too) should also take a look at some of the resources on the site. There’s some useful stuff here.
Thanks to Jo Badge ( @jobadge) for the link via Twitter.
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Get the Whiteboard Blog in a handy book format
“The Best of the Whiteboard Blog” contains the very best articles from over three years of this blog collated and put together into one handy document. Running to over 200 A4 pages it is chock full of ideas and useful links to help you to make the best use of your interactive whiteboard.
As well as interactive whiteboards it also covers other educational technologies that would be of interest to teachers such as digital storytelling and other “web 2.0” tools.
You can obtain an ebook version, or an A4 printed version.
Buy The Best of The Whiteboard Blog here. (electronic book / printed version)
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How to carry out an online survey using Google Docs
Here’s a short guide on how to carry out an online survey using Google Docs. I’ve put a link into the Guides section of this website.
For example this would be alternative way to collect class data about variation which might be easier than having one computer in the corner that each students goes to in turn to add their information, or having lots of different spreadsheets that have to be cut and pasted into one master document. Using this method the class could each visit an online form and enter their data, filling up the spreadsheet automatically. The spreadsheet can then be downloaded and shared via the school network.
It could also be used for parental surveys, or for class projects – sending the link to the survey out via Twitter or email to partner schools and ask them to fill in the information.
The guide is up on Scribd – so you can read it there or download a copy.
How to Carry Out an Online Survey Using Google Docs
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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Check your Interactive Whiteboard Gallery
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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