View Google Search Results Based Upon Reading Level

I recently just learned about a new tool that Google offers that will help you sort your search results based on Reading Level.  Although the new tool is fairly new and needs a little bit of work it is a great start to something that can make things a lot easier for teachers.  Google uses a very simplified leveling system which includes basic, intermediate and advanced reading levels that you can sort your results by.

How do I use this new feature?

• Go to www.google.com
• Type in your search term and then click on the "Advanced Search"
• On the next screen you can choose the Reading Level you want to work with or select "Annotate results with reading levels".

• Click on Advanced Search
• You can now choose which reading level you would like to sort by and the percentage of results within that reading level.

• You and your students can now use this feature to help narrow down the results and hopefully make things a little easier on everyone.

Classroom Use:
This is a great tool to use with students who may be researching information on a specific subject.  Elementary students can view the basic results where as High School Students might find that the intermediate or advanced results will better suit them.

The First Thanksgiving

Are you looking for something to teach your students about Thanksgiving?  Scholastic provides a really nice website that talks about The First Thanksgiving.  On their website they have many explanations that are very kid friendly.  You can show your students the Mayflower and show them the journey that the Pilgrims had taken to get to the new land.  You can also view the daily life of the Pilgrims after the arrived in the New World.  The First Thanksgiving is a great way to share the information with your students.  They also included a Teachers Guides for K-2, 3-5 and 6-8 that may help you gain a few more ideas.  There are also links to other sites that may help as well.  Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the resource!

Study Jams

If you are looking for something to liven up your classroom you will have to check out Study Jams.  Study Jams is a website that is built around the Math and Science subjects.  It has animated videos that explain a several topics of Math and Science.  There is also the karaoke section which provides songs that help the students remember the steps to many problems.  You can start the video and have your students sing along.  One of the nicest parts of Study Jams is the step through process on the Math section.  This takes math problems and shows the students step by step how to complete them.  All of the lessons are animated and all of them contain quizzes that you can use to help evaluate how your students are doing.  When you get a chance check out Study Jams!!

Science Links for Grade Level Units

Here is a rich science website jam-packed with tons of links related to life science that cover concepts with information, animations, and "test yourself" quizzes.

 http://www.abpischools.org.uk/page/index.cfm

Sponsored by ABPI,  the Association of  the British Pharmaceutical Industry this website has interactive content that focuses on real world applications of science, particularly the treatment of disease.

 Online science activities that relate to the  Foss Kit Units:

The Circulatory System

  The Skeletal System

  

The Digestive System

  The Five Senses

 

Use the Resource Library to search for animations, diagrams,  and worksheets to use with your teaching.

or search by age and/or topic to see more. http://www.abpischools.org.uk/page/resource/age.cfm

Download the animation videos to use in flipcharts!                                    

Voting Made Easy

With the election fast approaching some of you may still not know who to vote for.  You are also trying to explain all of the ads that are on T.V. to your students.  I just found a great website that will hopefully help you figure out who to vote for as well as help your students learn about the current candidates running for office.  VoteEasy is a neat little tool that will let you choose the state that you want to work with and then it will show you who is running for office.  You can click on the pictures of the individuals to learn more about them.  You can also choose the issues that you are concerned with and learn more about the issues.  Once the issue is selected you can answer how you feel about that issue and VoteEasy tells you which candidate shares your views.  Even if you don't want to use this with your students you can help yourself choose who to vote for.

How does this apply to the classroom?
This can be used to inform your students about the different candidates.  You can view the candidates and then have a mock election within your classroom.  Just be weary that some of the issues may be controversial.  The more that we can inform our students the more likely they will get out there and vote.

Great Math Manipulatives

Math Open Reference is a great website for showing geometry figures on the Promethean Board. With this website you can choose from three different categories Plane Geometry, Coordinate Geometry, and Solid Geometry.  Within the categories there are several manipulative activities that you can choose to show.  Each of the manipulative activities can be used to introduce the concept and also as an interactive lesson that the students can control.  If you don't mind the occasional ads on website this is a great place to visit.  Your students will get a lot out of seeing and controlling the manipulatives.  With these tools you will be able to help your students to focus in on the activities as well as retain the information.

Math Open Reference

Dropbox

It seems like the more that we use technology the more that we start to rely on it.  This is a good thing especially when everything is working properly but we have all been there when something goes wrong and the technology doesn't work the way that we want it to.  Recently I found a free and easy to use program that will help you back up your files so that if your computer does go down you can still access your files from any other computer.  Dropbox is a free service that allows you to have 2 GB of space out on the web for free.  All you have to do is download a quick application which will place a folder on your desktop that is connected to your Dropbox account. Place any file in this folder and it is automatically uploaded to your Dropbox account.  Now you can access your files from the folder on your computer or from the website itself on any computer that has web access.  Just imagine how useful this could be.  You create something at home, place it in your Dropbox account and it is ready for you the next day at school.  We have all had that scare when our computer isn't working properly and we are told to back up our files.  With Dropbox they are already there and we just have to log onto any computer to access the files that we backed up and we never miss a beat.  Do you have an iPhone or Droid?  Dropbox has an app for that as well.  Give it a try, I am sure you will see the benefits some day.

Activotes and BrainPop

The Activote Quiz is now integrated into BrainPop!

BrainPop has just released a great new feature for use with the Activotes.  Do you remember opening BrainPop and then opening ActivInspire to use the Activotes with BrainPop?  With the new add-in you can choose Activote Quiz from the list of options and be off and running.  Now the teacher can focus more on giving the quiz and less on going back and forth between ActivInspire and BrainPop.  Click here for the instructions on how to use it and click here for the download itself.  Once it is set up you don't have to worry about it again.  Trust me, it will be well worth your time to use this add-in.

Internet Safety Lessons

Welcome Back! We hope you had a restful summer and are excited to start a new year. I'm writing this blog following our beginning of the year Inservice. I just wanted to say that I am so impressed at how well D70 teachers have embraced technology and made it part of their effective teacher toolbox. I'm sure our students are appreciating the way our technology initiative is changing the way they learn.
Since Internet Safety is a topic that is relevant to all users--no matter what age and an important part of the 21 Century Skills students need to succeed, I thought this site called Internet Safety and You might be useful to you.




It offers guidance for students, teachers, and parents using Garfield the cat and his cast of comic strip characters to get across some important information. Topics include Online Safety, Cyberbullying, Fact or Opinion, and Forms of Media. There are videos along with opportunities for students to use the drag and drop features to draw conclusions and discover the correct way to use the Internet. I especially like that these lessons can apply to students in kindergarten all the way through 8th grade and beyond. You might think of using it during the first couple weeks of school as routines are established. It can also be used as a good discussion starter.

• Go to Helpful Hints to find the Activotes and Brainpop Guide covered in the Inservice
  

Back To School Reminders Re: your Promethean Boards

Be sure to try out boards before class to work out any glitches
email Clare corndoff@district.org or Shad sglenn@district70.org with any problems

Plug in board calibrate

Check for ActivInspire Updates. Go to Configure and then select Check for Updates option

Clean projector filter using compressed air

Poetry Writing -Anyone Can Do It!

Poetry is often a daunting subject to teach. Stduents may be ok with reading it, but sometimes writing poetry (especially with the older students) is like pulling teeth, and even though I'm an English Major, sometimes I'm a little fuzzy on which poetry form requires what.

That being said writing poetry nets wonderful dividends! Students use critical thinking skills and build vocabulary as they select specific words when writing. Poetry helps with reading skills as students have to consider syllabication. Poetry is a wonderful creative outlet for many students. Even though writing poetry might not be a favorite subject for all, I'm sure we all agree on its edcuational worth.

That's why I like this poetry writing website from Scholastic. It's fun and very easy to use. You can explore four different poetry formats: Haiku, Limerick, Cinquain, and Free Verse. The site offers brief definitions so you don't have to worry about what exactly a Cinquain poem needs. Using the examples you can go either in a serious or silly direction. If you choose to compose your own original poetry you have the option of printing it. Check it out. Happy writing!

Click Here.

Great Games for Learning

Currently I am taking an online course through the Verizon Thinkfinity Foundation and when I was looking at there website I found a very good resource not only for the teachers but also for the students to use at home.  It is located in the Games and Tools section on www.thinkfinity.org.  In this section there are many games that the students can play and learn without even knowing that they are learning.  After scrolling down past the featured Games and Tools you can browse all of the interactives that they have available.  This is a great way to find a math activity for your students and make sure that it is appropriate for their grade level.  After you select the grade level and subject it now give you a list of activities and you have the choice to share the activity with someone else, read more about it or just try the activity.  It doesn't get much easier then that!

Stop Bullying Now!

Stop Bullying Now is a great website for teachers and counselors. This website give a lot of kid friendly information that is fun and educational at the same time.  Within the kids section the website gives great information as to what bullying is and what they can do about it.  There are several webisodes that will give great information as well as start great classroom discussions about bullying.  If you need something to help get your students talking this is a great site to start with.  There is also a ton of information for adults and what they can do to stop bully's.  Is cyber bullying a problem there is also great information here as well.  There is a lot of great information on this websites and it will all be beneficial to our students.

ActivInspire Updates to Version 1.4

Promethean has just released the newest Version of ActivInspire.  Several changes have been made to ActivInspire that will make this program that much better.  One of the best changes is the return of the pen modifier tools.  These tools were available within ActivStudio and were somehow left out of the first version of ActivInspire.  Another great addition is the ability to select more than one page from the page browser.  You can now use the Ctrl key to select multiple pages and drag them to the location that you want.  One of my favorite new changes is the page turn effects option.  You can now set up your flipchart to turn the pages of the flipchart and add a little zing to your lesson.  If you would like to download the updates just make sure that ActivInspire is open then click on the Help menu and select check for updates.  It will tell you that there are updates available and select download.  You will have to either download it to your computer and then run the file from there or just choose run as your option when you download.  If you would like a more in depth look at what is new click here to view the new features guide.

Got Games?

As spring fever starts to settle in and students start to get a little restless you might be looking for some online activities that are more engaging. Here are some games that will keep students amused and still do a decent job of teaching or reviewing a concept.

Below are a few websites in different content areas that might be useful.

For Language Arts try: http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games6/gameindex/grammar-ninja.htm AKA Grammar Ninja

Students can practice identifying parts of speech and brush up on grammar skills as a Ninja Warrior.

For Vocabulary try:

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/rhwebsters/

This is a challenging word game that helps build vocabulary and shares interesting facts about the history of the English language.

For Science try: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm

A website that is sponsered by the Energy Information Association that has games and activities that explore different types of energy and the science behind those. There are also lesson plans and extension activities for teachers.

For Math Activities try: http://www.kidsolr.com/math/fractions.html

Students can practice their fraction skills converting improper fractions renaming fractions multiplying and dividing fractions.

April 22nd is Earth Day!

With Earth Day fast approaching there are several websites that offer information for teachers and kids.  The first website is called Energy Kids and it is a fascinating website that gives a ton of information about energy.  Do your students know what energy is?  If not they can visit Energy Kids and they can learn about energy and all of its different forms.  The website also give great information about nonrenewable and renewable energy.  It also breaks down how we use electricity and hydrogen as forms of energy.  Have you every wondered how much energy homes or businesses use?  Energy kids also gives some great statistics as to how much energy is used by people every day.  There are a few games and activities that are included but they are not very interactive so they will probably be best used within a lab setting.  This is a great website that provides a lot of information for both teachers and students.

BrainPop is also offering several videos and activities that go along very nicely with earth day.  They have 11 different videos that can be used to inform your students about earth day as well as an overall earth awareness package.  If you are not sure what to teach about earth day I would start with these videos and activities.

Activotes

Incorporating the Activotes into your classroom!

If you are like most teachers you would really like to use the Activotes within your classroom but you feel that you cannot fit them in.  Most teachers that I talk to feel that they either aren't comfortable with the Activotes or they just don't have the time.  Today I will give you some ideas to help you become more comfortable with the Activotes.

1. Pass out the Activotes first thing in the morning and don't pick them up until the day is finished.  (If the Activotes are already on the students desks you don't have to worry about passing them out and wasting the time to do so.)
2. Since they are already on the students desks use them to answer simple questions like... Do you understand?, Are you ready to move on? or Should we stop and review?  With questions like this you don't have to have a right or wrong answer but yet the feedback from your students will benefit their understanding of the concept.
3. You don't have to use them for everything that you are doing but if they are on the desk I am sure that you will use them for more than you think.  (Lunch count, understanding, quizzes, polls and much more.)
4. The more that you use the Activotes the more comfortable you will become with them and eventually you can use them to create tests and take scores or use them with websites (BrainPop) that already have quizzes attached to them  based on the Activotes.
5. If you need help with the technical aspects of using the Activotes I have attached an Activote Guide that I have created to help you out. (This guide is also available on the Helpful Hints section of the blog)

If this is helpful please let others know and they can get the same valuable information from our blog.

http://theprometheanteachers.blogspot.com/

Free Printable Certificates

With the end of the year fast approaching we are all trying to plan for all of the end of the year activities.  Recently I found a very cool website that offers free printable certificates that can be downloaded.  Certificate Street offers a ton of free templates that range from Student of the Day to good listener awards.  Once you find the certificate that you like you click on download and it opens from with Adobe reader.  Now all you have to do is type in the information hit print and the certificate is yours.  The only downfall to this is that you cannot save your completed certificates with the information filled in but you can save the template to use later.  This is definitely a time saver when it comes to the chaos that the end of the year brings.  Enjoy!

If you are looking for a website that has all the bells and whistles and amazing things that the web has to offer then don't read this!

If you are looking for a website that has all the bells and whistles and amazing things that the web has to offer then don't go to this website.  But, if you are looking for a website that will give your students ideas to write about then I would absolutely visit this site.  At first glance you would think that this website has nothing that you would be interested in but when you actually start to use it your students will thank you.  The Story Starter website is a website that provides 763,591,140 wonderful ideas and writing prompts for writers of all ages.  It is very simple to use all you have to do is click on the button that says "Click Here for a Random Story Starter Sentence" and the website provides a story starter.  After reviewing a few of the starters you will find some of them are very entertaining like this one "The hilarious airline hostess composed a song in the garage for the deadly frog."  Most of the story starters are probably for upper elementary through high school students but Joel Heffner has also created The Story Starter Jr. which provides story starters like "The superhero was walking in the school."  This website is good for your elementary school students but does not provide nearly the number of story starters as the original.  If you are anything like me this will make your job easier because I could never think of creative story starters like the ones provided on these two websites.

Wild Weather Adventure

If you are looking for a great weather review game you should visit NASA's space place.  Within the games section you will find many games that will be very helpful to you and your students. 

While visiting a classroom I was able to observe students playing a game called Wild Weather Adventure and having a great time while learning.  This game takes the students on a weather adventure across the world.  As the game starts the teacher chooses how many groups will be playing and then sets the groups.  The students now choose their group name and start the game.  As the students spin a wheel it asks them questions about weather and gives them small bits of knowledge as they play the game.  Each team has a weather ballon that they move from space to space on the board of the world.  The more answers that they answer correctly the further they move and the closer they get to the end.  The first team to move their balloon to the end wins the game.  This can be a great review for your students.  It is not only fun but they can also learn something while they play.
Note:  On the main page the teacher can click on "Click here to view the text version" and they will show all of the questions that are asked along with the answers to those questions. 

Special Thanks:  Thank you to Michelle Bernstein for sharing this link with me.  If anyone else has some good links that they would like included feel free to let me know and I will pass them on to everyone.  Don't forget to tell your friends.

Did you know that Big Bird is 8 feet 2 inches tall?

When it comes to kids they always have one thing in common and that is they all love Sesame Street.  Sesame Street has a great website with games that can be played either on their own computer or along with the Promethean Board.  While browsing their list of games I found 62 different games that range from numbers and counting to early reading.  All of the games can be sorted by subject, theme or even by the characters to make it easier to find what you are looking for. While Sesame Street is probably geared more towards the younger students, there might be a few things that even your older students might like.  All of the games are based on one of the Sesame Street characters and that character leads them through the activity that the kids will be doing.  Even if you don't teach the lower grade levels this would be a great website for any kid that may just be learning their numbers and letters up to those kids who may just be starting to read. 

Make Beautiful Backgrounds Using Science

Do you wish you could design your own backgrounds in ActivInspire? Do you possess some graphic designer qualities yourself? Are you looking for a visually stimulating exercise for your students? Need a brain break idea?

Caution: The Flame Website is absolutely mesmerizing!


We all know how important creativity is but it's difficult to find the time. The Flame Website offers an opportunity for teachers and students to be creative by using their amazing drawing tool to draw vivid images.
There are also animations, pictures, and experiments on this website. I encourage science teachers to check out the experiments as they show some awesome examples of particle behavior like the effect wind has on fire. Even if you don't get into the scientific aspects of this (I'm no chemistry teacher-that's for sure!) the kids will enjoy and learn a lot just by watching or exploring this site.
Click here to go to the Flame Website.
The program may ask you to run an earlier version of Java that's ok. Just click ok.
The first ISTE National Educational Technology Standard for students is: 1. Creativity and Innovation Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance to support individual learning and contribute to learning of others. The first IST/E standard for teachers is very similar: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity .

To create your own backgrounds in ActivInspire: save your masterpiece by clicking the save button on the lower right hand corner. Giver your computer a minute to load. After your image is displayed go to file, then choose "save page as". Select your location i.e. pictures, documents, desktop, etc . . . This will save your masterpiece on your computer as a picture you can import.

In ActivInsipre choose Insert, then Media. Browse for your image-double click. Your masterpiece will then appear on your flipchart page as an object that you can use as a background or image.

Cool Math Videos

Attention Math Teachers!

Math Live is an interactive website that reminds me of Brainpop with engaging videos and characters that do a good job describing math concepts. This website is found at the Lean Alberta website that has quality digital learning resources based out of Canada.

Math Live presents students with animated stories that teach mathematics lessons. In all there are twenty-three lessons for elementary school and middle school students. The lessons are divided into four categories; Numbers, Patterns and Relations, Shape and Space, Statistics and Probability. Each animated lesson is accompanied by a mathematics worksheet that students complete either while watching the lesson or after viewing the lesson. Each lesson is divided into sections and students can advance or rewind as needed.

Since the teacher controls the pace of the video, it's easy to customize your lesson with class discussion, annotations, and/or Activote input.

Another nice feature is if the wrong answer is selected an explanation pops up that explains why that choice is not the best. Along with the video are assessments that state the lesson objectives with printable worksheets that have a scoring guide or rubric with student examples and rationale for the given score. This website is setup in a way that teachers can use it to teach whole class, or students can explore individually.

Try it out. Share it with a colleague. Encourage them to sign up to receive activities and lesson ideas.




After the introduction (optional) select the lesson link in the lower right hand corner to view math content choices.

My Hippo has the Hiccups

Online books are becoming more and more common in today's world.  With the Interactive White Boards that are available to the majority of the teachers it makes them more accessible for us as teachers.  Recently I have found an online book that is Free yeah I said FREE, which makes it that much more appealing to teachers.  The book is called My Hippo Has the Hiccups and it is a great book to show students that poetry can be fun for them to write and also read. This book includes the online version of the book which can be viewed in the full screen mode.  Another great feature of this book is that it also includes the audio to the majority of the poems that are written.  With this feature the students can not only read the poem to themselves they can also listen to the poem the way that it was meant to be read. 

If you like this resource make sure you tell others to sign up to receive the same great resources that you get.   

Teaching with Maps

Just recently I came across a website the compliments the Promethean Board called Scribble Maps.  If you are like me you have been using Google Earth to show your students everything from where their school is located to how far away Japan is.  While ActivInspire has the tools to annotate over the desktop it definitely takes some time to learn how to annotate over the Google Earth map that you have up.  Now with Scribble Maps the drawing tools are built into the map so it makes it easier to draw on top of the map that your students are viewing.  You can also add markers to your maps, plus find directions to and from any location during your lesson.  With this website even the most novice user will have no problems using this website to bring your lesson to life.

Science Website

When it comes to the internet there are millions of resources that are available for science.  For a really great science website click here.  Science Bob has a lot of free resources that you can use with your students as well as many resources that your students can use on their own.  The website is broken down into 8 different categories for you to choose from.  The main categories being science fair ideas, experiments, and videos.  Science Bob has created this website as a tool for both teachers and students.  Within the science fair ideas section it gives great ideas for science experiments that students can do on their own or for a science fair.  Science Bob breaks down the scientific method which can also be printed and also has many resources for kids.  Within the experiments portion of the website Science Bob has many experiments with step by step instructions and an explanation of why it works to help your students.  One of the best parts of the website is the videos section Science Bob has 20 videos that are also found on his You Tube channel.  The videos are very entertaining and also educational for your students.

Great Non-Fiction Stories

This is one of the coolest websites that I have seen in a long time.  This website is from National Geographic Young Explorers and is created to get students excited about Non-Fiction reading.  When you get to the site click on the large button that says listen and read. Once you click on that it will open the latest online book that they are offering.  You can turn the pages to view the pictures as well as have the computer read the text on each of the pages.  The pictures are amazing like all National Geographic pictures are and the reading is very well written for all students at any level.  This will keep your students engaged in the activity while learning a little something as well.

This website is designed for Kindergarten through 1st grade students but I think that most kids would really enjoy this.  The website has back issues that you can choose from so if you are looking for something specific it will be found in the More Issues tab on the site.  In the For Teachers section you will find teacher's guides to help you with implementing the books into your classroom.

CHECK THIS OUT:  In the Teachers section you will find a link to Promethean Planet which has several flipcharts that are already created that help integrate the books into a lesson on the flipcharts.  Most of the flipcharts are free right now but I would assume that because they are in the Premium content portion of Promethean Planet they may not be free for long. So act fast!

Think Visually

If you are anything like me it is hard to get your students to plan their writing.  They never know what to write about or they "can't think of anything".  Now you can use the computer to your advantage to help your students become better writers.  Webspiration is an online tool that will help your students map out ideas, organize with outlines or even collaborate with each other.  Once you create a free account on Webspiration you have the ability to do all of the above as well as much more.  With Webspiration you can quickly create a map of what you are thinking about as a class.  You can now leave that up for the students to see or you can print it off so that all of the students have the ideas in front of them.  This program also gives you the ability to take a map of their thoughts and quickly organize it as an outline.  You can quickly add pictures to your maps as well as multiple shapes and colors that will help with the organization process.  Once you are finished with your map you can save it so that you can come back to it at a later time.  This will most definitely help your students learn to organize their writing in a fun and creative way. 

Math Playground

Math Playground is a fun and entertaining website for students of all ages.  They have many games that can be played on the Promethean Board which range from multiplication to percentages.  All of the games are interactive and are easy to figure out. 

Math Playground also has word problems that can be used in the classroom and they are broken down from grades 1-7.  Some of the word problems are not very fancy but they do let the students answer the question and then it will give them immediate feedback.

Another part of Math Playground that can be beneficial to the teacher and the students is in the Logic puzzles section.  In this section there are several logic games that can be played like sudoku as well as connect 4 along with many others. 

The last section of Math Playground is the Math Video section.  In this section there are many videos that will help compliment the lessons that you are already teaching.  This would be great for the students who may need some extra support at school or even at home.

If you are a math teacher this site is definitely one that you will enjoy and you will probably refer back to time and time again.

Fun Website!

Check out this great website where you can easily personalize funny animations or write your own realistic looking headlines for your class.

This website offers several fun ways to engage your kids. You can write a mock headline. Use several funny looking characters to reveal any type of text i.e. directions for a lesson, concept review, or just a fun message that will definitely get your kids' attention.

Add a personalized touch to your Promethean lesson. Generate your creation at the website. Download the image or video. Save it to your computer and insert it into your flipchart page to use as part of your lesson by going to "insert". Choose media and then browse for your saved image or just drag and drop your image on to your flipchart page. Have fun!

http://www.fodey.com/

GeoGames for the Promethean Board

I just found a great website to help teach geography skills.  On this website there is one activity called GeoGames where the kids can play a game that relates to the globe and maps.  During the game the students have the ability to choose between building planet earth and placing the correct countries and cities on the globe.  While building planet earth the students can take the poles and drag them to the correct spots on the globe and then take the countries and drag them as well.  The countries and cities work the same but they are a bit more challenging.  I would recommend the countries and cities for the middle and high school students.  The best part about this game is that it is timed and the students can have races to see who can place everything in the shortest amount of time.  After you build your map you can print it out for the students to use at a later date or even so that they can refer back to later.

Read Wrtite Think

Read, Write, Think is a wonderful website if you are looking for interactive resources for the classroom.  All of the resources can be used with the Promethean Board and can be controlled by the students or the teacher.  Once the teacher finds the activity that they want to use it is basically showing the students how to use it and then letting them play and learn.  If you click on the resources tab and select student interactives you will be taken to a page that gives you some featured activities as well as a place to search for specific activities.  This is a great way to implement interactives into your lessons without a lot of work to prepare for them.

All activities come with lesson plans as well as ideas to help you use the resources within you classroom.  It also gives you suggestions as to how you can use the one interactive activity with many different grade levels.  This is a easy to use website that will help your lessons come to life.

Using the Tooltip

ActivInspire has a great new feature that they have added and that is called the Tooltip.  The Tooltip works with any object that you have put on a page.  It could be text or images.  As you hover over the text or the image that has the Tooltip, a box will appear with information in it.  This information can be anything that you want it to be. Here is how to create the Tooltip...

1. Place a text box or an object on your flipchart page.
2. Open your browser and click on the Property Browser.
3. With you browser still open click on the object.
4. In the Label section of the Property browser Type in the words that you want to appear in the "Caption" box.
5. At the bottom of the Label section make sure that the Behaviour is set to Tooltip.
6. You can also make changes to the way the Tooltip looks by changing the font name, size and color along with the background of the Tooltip box.

To see a great flipchart that has Tooltips already done click here!

Interactive Activities

If you are looking for a great resource for teaching math you should try the Illuminations website.  On this website they have many interactive activities for teachers to use with thier students.  You can search for the activities based on the concept that you want to find as well as the grade level.  Most of the activities can be used with what you are already teaching and are a way to help your students better understand the concepts.  The Illuminations website is partnered with Thinkfinity and it is run by the Verizon foundation.  I would suggest taking a look at these two websites for some wonderful free resources.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Since today is Dr. Seuss's Birthday a great website to look at is the Seussville website.  On this website there are many activities for your students to interact with.  If you go to the games section you can choose from matching games to patterning.  Most of the games can be used with the Promethean Board as well as on student machines.  One of the best things about the website is the fact that you can read quotes from a variety of Dr. Seuss's books.  You can also create a story using pictures and characters from the Dr. Seuss stories.  Take a look at it when you get a chance, you will be pleased I am sure.

Science Resource

I just found a great website that can be used with the Promethean Board to model different ideas from the science realm.  It is from the NOVA website which also has other great resources.  On the Interactive Archive page there are several  categories from the science field which include models that can be used in the classroom.  Some of the models can be used directly on the website and other models can be downloaded and actually embedded into a flipchart.  What a great way to add the WOW factor to your flipchart.

Using Activotes with ActivInspire

Activotes

With ActivInspire in full swing we have had several questions about how to use the Activotes. To start your Activotes you need to first click on the icon with the blue question mark. Once that has been clicked on it will open up the Express Poll circle. When you hover over the circle you will see three different choices.

· The top choice is for multiple choice questions, as you hover over the icon you can now choose from A-B to A-F. Once you choose the option that you want it will start the Activotes for you.

· The next choice is for Yes/No or True/False questions. Once you choose the type of question that you want it will start the Activotes for you as well.

· The last option that you will see is for the Activote settings. The red X will close the Activotes.

· IMPORTANT: If you try to use you Activotes and the message tells you that they are not registered you need do the following.

With ActivInspire open click on File> Settings. You will have a new screen that opens and you should be in the Learner Response System box. Scroll down to the bottom of that screen and make sure that next to “Devices to target for voting sessions” it show Activotes. Click done and you won’t have to change this setting again. The next time that you try to start your Activotes the computer will see that they are registered.