Read all about it!

Here's a fun little tool that could liven up the way you present information - or make a class writing task a little more fun.

The newspaper generator lets you put your own text into a few boxes, and then generates an authentic looking newspaper article containing your text.

The finished product is very authentic, and quite impressive.

You have to save your image and host it elsewhere if you want to use it online, but it is a very quick process to host it on Flickr or similar.

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.

Rub and Reveal

Here's a quick idea for using an interactive whiteboard. It could be a lesson starter, or form part of a plenary or could just be used throughout the lesson as a quick check on what the students have learnt so far.

This is something that always goes down well when I demonstrate it in training sessions as it is so quick and easy to do, but can be used in a range of different ways.

Watch the video here.

How do you do this?

1. Use the text tool to type some text on the notebook page
2. Use the pen tool to draw over the top of the text to hide it (you may want to make the pen thick and match the colour to the background)
3. When you are ready to reveal the writing, click on the Eraser tool and rub out the pen to reveal the text hiding behind it.

Another way of hiding the text could be using shapes to hide the text which can then be moved away or deleted when you want to reveal the word.

How might you use this?

This could be used as the example in the video for hiding labels on a diagram, getting the students to label it, and then revealing the correct answer.

It could also be used to hide the answers to questions given to the students on the screen.

A photograph could be completely covered in black pen, and then the eraser used to gradually reveal parts of the photograph, asking the students at different stages what they can see and what they can infer from what they see.

This is also a quick way of producing missing words activities - type or copy/paste in a block of text and instead of having to go through and delete the missing words and add spaces, just cover each word you want to take out with white pen. It's also easier to reveal the correct answer too.

if you want the Smart Notebook file with the above example of labelling David Beckham in French, then click here to download it.

(Footnote: apologies to any readers from across the sea if I keep calling it the rubber tool on the video. I try to call it the eraser, but over here we call it the rubber. I do know that word has different connotations over where, but just put it down to English eccentricity and go with it!)

The Plenary Circle

Here's a simple idea for using an Interactive Whiteboard for an end-of-lesson plenary activity. It's a very simple slide to produce;

1. Draw a circle and fill it in.
2. Lock the circle to the background.
3. Add text boxes with keywords from the lesson around the outside of the circle.

And thats it. At the end of the lesson, get different pupils to come to the board and pull in two words to complete the sentence "I have learned that...." For example "I have learned that body cells contain 46 chromosomes."

Every pupil should have some thinking time first to think of several combinations they could use before calling pupils to the board.

This could be made more involved by "chaining" the words so that one word is left behind for the next pupil to use... but this means more thought has to be put into the words provided by the teacher in the first place.

If the room layout makes it difficult to get the pupils up to the board easily, then it may be worth investing in a wireless mouse that can be quickly passed around and allow them to move the words themselves.

I have produced a quick video about this activity. You can view it here.

The Smart Notebook and Promethean file that includes this activity can be found on this page. Scroll down to the Biology section and download the Mitosis and Meiosis lesson.