Smart Lesson Toolkit

A while back I wrote about the beta version of the Smart Lesson Activity Toolkit, which was a fantastic way of adding interactive elements to your Smart Notebook page.

Well, with the release of Smart Notebook 10, the full version of the Lesson Activity Toolkit has been released.

If you don't yet want to upgrade to version 10, but want the new Lesson Toolkit, then you can download it separately via this page. Installation instructions can be found there too as well as some videos on how to get the most out of it.

Science Notebook Files

Two years ago I produced a pack of Smart Notebook files for Steljes, the distributors of Smartboards over here in the UK. They formed part of a teachers pack that was distributed to schools around the UK.

The files were also available via the Steljes Software site. For now, that site is no longer up, and the files are no longer available online.

I have copied the files onto my Think Bank website so that Smartboard users can still access them. Each file has a corresponding teachers' guide in pdf format.

The six lesson packs cover the following topics:

• The Blast Furnace (KS4)
• Cells (KS3)
• Forces (KS3)
• Metals (Ks3)
• Muscles and Joints (KS4)
• Reflection and Refraction (KS4)

To download the files, and the corresponding teachers guide, click here.

Yenka Science and Maths Resources

Yenka is a new resource from the people who produced Crocodile Clips. It's based on their Absorb range of online teaching materials that originally were released alongside Crocodile Physics and Chemistry.

The whole library is going to be a subscription service, but on release they have produced 700 resources which can be used free-of charge.

These resources cover aspects of science and maths and should work very well on an interactive whiteboard. Well worth a visit.

Yenka via kwout

Heart Animation

As a former Biology teacher I am always interested in nice animations that can be used to demonstrate biological processes.

Thanks to Science Video Resources for posting this article about a nice heart animation. You can see the animation here.

Looking at the site that hosted this animation, I tracked back to the main teaching resources page. It's worth taking a look at that too since there are links to some other interesting Biology animations and movies such as Mitosis and meiosis.

On a related note, Science Video Resources also posted another link to a resource that shows circulation in different vertebrates, that is also quite interesting.

Weather Kit

A quick post from the ASE conference to take advantage of the free internet in my hotel room.

I saw quite a lot of "interactive resources" today, but one resource I really liked was the Interactive Weather Presenting Kit from the Met Office.

It's not online, you need the CD-ROM. But you can apply for your own copy of the CD via the Met Office website.

This highly package is designed to consolidate weather and climate throughout Key Stages 2-4, and provides an ideal opportunity for the use of ICT in Geography. and Science. It uses Microsoft PowerPoint and comes with a range of master slides, four weather symbols sets, an image library and links to current weather data.

Just visit http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/resources/interactive_kit.html and fill in the form to get your own copy sent to you.

Clipbank

As well as being an Interactive Whiteboard trainer for Smart/Steljes I also train for other educational companies. One of those is Espresso, which for those that don't know is an excellent library of video clips, news articles and Flash activities for Primary Schools. I have been training for them for about 18months and I love the product. The quality of the videos is very good and Espresso quite deservedly won a BAFTA last month.

So I was very interested to see their secondary product, Clipbank, today at a session designed to get us up to speed with the product to be able to deliver training to schools next year as they buy into it.

Espresso acquired Channel 4 Learning earlier in the year, and Clipbank was one of the products they inherited. They've spent a lot of time tweaking the product to be delivered on a server in-school in the same way as Espresso and the new-look version will be on-show at Bett next month.

Like Espresso you get a very simple user-interface that gives easy access to a wealth of video clips (currently over 2000 clips) for 8 subjects. The quality of the clips is excellent, as you would expect for a company with their media experience.

The potential for using resources like Espresso and Clipbank on the IWB is huge. It means teachers can use short video clips to introduce a lesson or as a way of summarising the main points. Whiteboard tools such as the camera can be used to grab screenshots from the video and bring into the IWB software for annotation. A sequence of screenshots could even be taken and then used as a sequencing activity.

So a great resource, and I look forward to getting stuck in delivering training in Clipbank next year.

The other excitement from the day came from the fact that Espresso headquarters is at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. This is also a working TV studio where the likes of Doctor Who and TFI Friday were filmed. Today they just happened to be filming the Top of the Pops Xmas Special. Apparently the likes of Girls Aloud and the Kaiser Chiefs were in the building. There were huge bouncers on the door and paparazzi hanging around outside. I did see quite a few hairy types carrying guitars and stuff wandering around the canteen but if they were famous I didn't recognise them. It is definitely a sign that I am getting old(er) in that I wouldn't recognise a Kaiser Chief if it came up and kicked me in the backside.... I know their songs but couldn't point one out in a line up.

The Proclaimers were also there apparently, and I'd have much more chance of spotting them, had I managed to see one.

But I didn't. Which was a shame.

Whiteboards on Teachers TV

If you haven't already been there, you can access videos from Teachers TV via the magic of the Internet. I must admit it is somewhere I keep forgetting to access but it has a wealth of ideas for teachers.

If you do a search for Whiteboards you will get a whole host of programmes that have been produced to show good practice for using Interactive Whiteboards in the classroom for a range of subjects.

For example here is a 15 minute video that gives you some Top Tips for using an interactive whiteboard.

Not all of the videos on Teachers TV are available to visitors outside the UK due to copyright issues, but hopefully there is still enough there for overseas visitors to see how we are using IWB's over here.