Integrating Promethean ActivExpression With BrainPOP
If you are a BrainPop user, did you know that you can use the quizzes on their excellent website with your Promethean ActivExpression or ActiVote handsets?
If you didn’t know that, and want to find out how, then here’s a guide by teacher Steve Figurelli on how to do this.
For additional information – click on either the BrainPop or BrainPop UK links below then click on the Quiz Integration tab. You’ll also find links to download the Flash Bridge software which does the integration between the Promtethean software and the BrainPop site.
You can also get more help, and watch a short video, via the BrainPopUK blog here.
If you are a BrainPop user you can also download a BrainPop resource pack which offers a set of cross-curricular resources for that you can use to create your own flipcharts and enhance your web-based lessons. It includes images of Tim & Moby, other fun visuals, graphic organisers and more. You’d need to be a Promethean Planet member to download, but it’s free to join.
If you haven’t seen BrainPop before, it’s an online subscription resource for ages 7–14 that delivers some excellent content for Science, Humanities, Maths, English, PSHE & Citizenship, Arts and Design & Technology. If you want to get a taste for what BrainPop is, take a look at their free movies, or download the free Movie of the Day app for your iPod/iPad. (UK Link / US Link)
And for Promethean ActivInspire Training and ActivExpression Training, please get in touch.
Read MorePromethean ActivEngage Mobile – Voting on iPads and other devices
Promethean have just released ActivEngage, which will be of interest to schools that have started to roll out iPads and other mobile solutions in the classroom. Or for schools that are looking at a “Bring Your Own Device” approach. ActivEngage is a software-based learner response system for use in schools that have invested in 1:1 laptop initiatives, computer labs and mobile handheld devices for learners. It allows students to use these devices to take part in quizzes or tests without having to purchase additional voting handsets such as ActiVote or ActivExpression.
There’s two parts to the system. First the teacher needs to download the ActivEngage Server software to their computer. The students can then download the ActivEngage client software to their laptop, iPad/iPod, Android device or other mobile solution. Both downloads are free.
If all you want to do is try it out, then ActivEngage allows for three clients to participate in an ActivInspire response session without the need for any serial numbers to be entered. So try it out and see if it works on your school network. If you do want to purchase it, then you’ll receive a key to unlock the software which will allow class sets of student devices to be connected.
I had a little play with it this morning and had it working on my laptop pretty quickly. I found I had to update my ActivDriver to be able to connect to the Engage Server. You can get the most recent version of ActivDriver for your computer from Promethean Planet here (on the right of the page).
Once the server was running on my laptop,it acted as a virtual ActivHub. When I went into device registration I was then able to add my iPhone and iPad, after installing the client software from the App Store. On registering I was able to enter a name for each device. It was pretty painless.
When I started a polling session in ActivInspire, the screens immediately showed the buttons for answering the question. This will change depending on the question style. You can choose from multiple choice, text entry, number entry, sort order, likert scales and more.
Student responses and answers are collected in exactly the same way as any other ActiVote or ActivExpression session.
If you are looking at ways of incorporating learner response systems, but don’t want the expense of a class set of handsets, then this could be an interesting option. Especially if you have already purchased iPads or iPod Touches for student use. I have no idea how much the system costs, you’d have to get in touch with Promethean or a reseller to find out. If anyone knows a rough price, please put it in the comments below.
To download, and access user guides on ActivEngage, go here. A login for Promethean Planet will be needed to get the software, but it’s free to do so.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
And for Promethean ActivInspire Training and ActivExpression Training, please get in touch.
Read MoreUsing BrainPop with Promethean ActivExpression Quizzes
If you are a BrainPop user, did you know that you can use the quizzes on their excellent website with your Promethean ActivExpression or ActiVote handsets?
In order to run the quizzes, you will need to download and install a Flash Bridge which acts as the medium between your voting device and your BrainPOP UK quiz, enabling the two to interact together. When this is done, you should see an additional button when using a quiz which says ActiVote or ActivExpression.
To find out how to do it, just click on the following link for either BrainPop or BrainPop UK then click on the Quiz Integration tab for more instructions. You’ll find links to download the Flash Bridge there too.
You can also get more help, and watch a short video, via the BrainPopUK blog here.
You can also download a BrainPop resource pack which offers a set of cross-curricular resources for that you can use to create your own flipcharts and enhance your web-based lessons. It includes images of Tim & Moby, other fun visuals, graphic organisers and more. You’d need to be a Promethean Planet member to download, but it’s free to join.
If you haven’t seen BrainPop before, it’s an online subscription resource for ages 7–14 that delivers some excellent content for Science, Humanities, Maths, English, PSHE & Citizenship, Arts and Design & Technology.
If you want to get a taste for what BrainPop is, take a look at their free movies, or download the free Movie of the Day app for your iPod/iPad. (UK Link / US Link)
And for Promethean ActivInspire Training and ActivExpression Training, please get in touch.
Read MorePromethean Science and Technology User Group
Thanks to Promethean for making me a “SuperUser” of their Promethean Planet website. What this means is that I’ll hopefully be putting up a few blog posts on their website once or twice a month, making and sharing some whiteboard resources and generally hanging about a bit more on the Promethean Planet forums.
What this also means is that I’ve set up a special User Group on the Promethean Planet website which will discuss the use of technology in science education. I’m hoping that some of you will join!
The purpose of this group is to enhance the teaching and learning of Science through the use of digital technologies such as whiteboards, but also datalogging, visualisers, Learner Response devices, interactive websites, science videos, science software and more.
You don’t have to own a Promethean product to join Promethean Planet and take part in any of the user groups. To visit the Science user group, and also see some of the other user groups on the website, click here. There are user groups on lots of other topics.
Don’t forget that the Promethean Planet website is home to thousands of lesson resources – not just Promethean flipchart files, there are powerpoints, worksheets, lesson plans and more. It’s well worth a look, and it’s free to join!
An experiment with the common .IWB file format in Smart/Promethean (and Easiteach)
A new feature with the latest version of ActivInspire is the ability to export your files as the Becta-driven .IWB file format. This is an interesting step for Promethean to take since previously they’ve removed the ability to move your files out of their own flipchart format – even removing the old ActivStudio/Primary feature of being able to export to PowerPoint. For teachers who don’t want to be “locked in” to one particular file format if they ever change schools, the need for a common whiteboard file format is quite important, as is the need to be able to move from one brand of whiteboard to another. You could also use this to create files for Easiteach.
There’s been discussion about the .iwb format over on this thread on Promethean Planet, with teachers asking about which features survive the export to .IWB. So I decided to run a little experiment seeing as a whiteboard trainer I am lucky enough to have both Smart Notebook and ActivInspire on my computer.
I created a simple file with many of the basic features in ActivInspire. I exported that file as the .IWB file format and then import it into Smart Notebook. To do this yourself, in ActivInspire go to File -> Export -> Becta (.iwb) and then in Smart Notebook go to File -> Import and then choose .iwb as the file type.
My first page was a basic plenary circle that I’ve used many times before. Lots of words around a simple shape. Here’s how it looked before the export as an .IWB file.
And here’s how it looked once imported into Smart Notebook.
Basically as you can see it moves all the words up into the top left hand corner and loses text formatting. With a little work it would be pretty quick to move everything back into place.
Here’s the same file imported into RM Easiteach:
The next page I tried used lots of the simple features that I would often use in an ActivInspire flipchart. I grouped some shapes with text, added a text hyperlink, attached a sound to a shape.
The page in Inspire looked like this:
And in Smart Notebook looked like this:
Most of the features transferred OK, again the text needs to be rearranged and restored to its original positions. The red circle still had the hyperlink to a sound file. And once I’d retrieved it from the top left corner the text with a hyperlink to the BBC website worked fine. Images and clipart pictures moved across fine. And the yellow background was kept intact.
The Drag a Copy/Infinite Cloner feature of the yellow arrow had been lost. The biggest problem was the grouped shape with text, which became this:
The shapes and text were still grouped together, but the text had been moved a long way away from the original shape. Again with a quick ungroup and regroup it could be fixed.
Here’s the same page imported into easiteach:
In Easiteach the infinite cloner works, but the hyperlinks to sounds and web pages are lost. Grouped object works fine though.
I then tried a page with some shapes and a grid background. Not surprisingly the grid was lost on the transfer, although the curve was kept.
But a page with a background image from the Promethean Resource library kept its background when transferring.The page below looked identical in both versions.
So I decided to try something more complicated, but still using basic shapes. Here’s one of the pages from my 5 Lesson Start ideas files. The page uses a graduated blue and yellow rectangle as a background, locked in place, then several pieces of clip art with a line and a shape grouped together hidden behind a clip art boy.
This file, once exported and imported becomes this :
Basically quite a mess. Again, it’s fixable, but you’ll need to invest a little time in ungrouping, rearranging, regrouping and resizing everything on the page.
The other pages in the file were affected in the same way. All would need work to become useable again, but not insurmountable.
I also tried importing into RM Easiteach – the files did look a lot better. Here’s the same page for comparison:
Which suggests that maybe the text issues is more a problem with the Smart Import than the file format.
So from what you can see, although the possibility is there to now export files from Promethean into Smart (or Easiteach) via the .iwb file format, the format itself is very limiting. You can have shape, text, hyperlinks and grouping. But more advanced features will not survive the move. I haven’t even attempted to try some of the page actions that you will find in Promethean, they just won’t move across as they’re Inspire-specific. Also if you are doing this be prepared to have to rearrange every single piece of text. I do wonder if it’s almost quicker to build the files again from scratch.
With the demise of BECTA I doubt there is any drive to work on the .IWB file format and make it a more robust standard. At least being able to remove the need for rebuilding would be useful. Hopefully someone will pick up the project.
If you’ve had any more luck with a similar experiment – or have any other questions, please let me know in the comments below!
Update 1 – you can also get a IWB file Board Viewer applet via this site.
Update 2 – I have since tried this with Mimio v8. Mimio doesn’t handle the .iwb files very well – they end up looking very similar to they did in smart Notebook, which was not very good. But I was impressed to see that Mimio Studio opens Smart .notebook and ActivInspire .flipchart files really well. This is quite impressive – but you will need a mimio device to unlock the software – I don’t know if you can purchase a licence for the software separately. Can anyone advise?
Read MoreICT Reviews for Schools – Whiteboard Guide
You may not know this but PC Pro magazine produces an occasional supplement for education called ICT Reviews for Schools. The free guide is packed with buyer’s guides, reviews and features to help schools spend their IT budgets wisely.
Issue 4 is just out, and this time features a very interesting article written by Terry Freedman entitled “Getting the most from your interactive whiteboard”.
The guide also includes head to head reviews of a Promethean and Smart whiteboard as well as a great guide to 10 free online tools.
It’s well worth a look. It’s a free download, and you can get hold of a copy here.
Read MoreAnnotate Word Documents with Promethean ActivMarker
This post was inspired by a Promethean ActivInspire training session that I delivered recently. An English teacher wanted to annotate on top of Word documents, but didn’t want to use the transparent flipchart, or capture sections of text with the camera and annotate them within ActivInspire.
It is possible to do this, using a little known tool that comes bundled with ActivInspire called ActivMarker. It’s a slightly hidden feature and many Activ users don’t seem to know about it, which is a shame as it’s a handy feature.
To launch ActivMarker go to the Start menu and click on -> All Programs -> Activ Software -> Activ Inspire -> Activ marker
Once launched, the next time you open Microsoft Word you will notice a new floating tool over on the right hand side of the window, which looks a bit like this:
To start writing, click on the Pen icon, then start drawing over the top of your Word document. Or click on the highlighter to highlight different words. You can change pen size and colour.
The annotations will be added as clip art into your document. This will work with any Microsoft Office application, including PowerPoint and Excel.
When you save the document you can save it with these extra annotations, and call it back in the future. Or quit without saving to keep your document pristine.
Don’t forget if you want to annotate over PDF files you can use the File -> Import feature to import the PDF file into ActivInspire. It will put each page of the PDF onto it’s own page of the flipchart. Use the Page Zoom tool to zoom in and out to display the text larger on the screen if you wish. You (and your students) can then annotate on top of the flipchart – good for group editing tasks, or examination technique using past exam papers.
If you are a SMARTboard user you also have a similar feature to ActivMarker, called InkAware, which runs automatically.
Let me know what you think of ActivMarker in the comments section.
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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.
Read MoreEmbed 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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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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