SMART Boards

FREE Sound Software

  Julie Ann Sawall's latest greatest idea is a little known secret she mentioned in our recent Green Bay and Wausau SMART Board seminars.  Julie used a simple computer headset she got from Best Buy and showed how to use FREE Audacity software to capture audio, save in as MP3 files and link to SMART Notebook objects.  Here we see a simple audio file created with the FREE Windows version of Audacity.

  Mac users aren't left out, because they can download the Macintosh version, too.  There's even a Linux version.  With Audacity, you can record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit OGG Vorbis, MP3 and WAV sound files, cut, copy, splice and mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording and much more.  Audacity is FREE (not shareware) and is open source software, like OfficeOffice and Mozilla.  Machine requirements are very small, Vista/XP/2000/98 - 64 MB RAM, 300 MHz processor.  Macintosh - version 1.0 (Mac OS 9.0 or later), version 1.1 (Mac OS 10.1 or later)

  In SMART Notebook, you'd create an object or use one from the Gallery.  Here we've brought in Lincoln from the Gallery and are clicking on the drop down menum (click on the object then click on the triangle on the upper right corner of the object).  Pull down to "Sound..." to link the sound.

Finally, using the Insert Sound dialog box, click on the Browse button to find the Sound file you want to use.  SMART Notebook works best with MP3 files.  Once the file attaches, click on the Corner Icon or Object radio buttons to set up the user interface for playing the sound and click OK.

Create AirLiner Underlays

This AirLiner has one of SmartChoice's Flight Plan underlays being installed on it.  An underlay is a sheet of paper that acts as a guide to help you write better on an AirLiner.  It also has up to 11 tools on the toolbar, that you can select with the AirLiner stylus.  Until February 23rd's release of SMART Board software 9.5 Service Pack 5, it has been very hard to create customized underlays for an AirLiner.                        .

In SMART's Control Center, IF you have an AirLiner attached to your computer, you can customize Underlays.  Click on "SMART Board Settings," then where the pull down menu says "Hardware Info and Settings" pull down to "Display Properties."  Click on the "Customize and Print" button at the bottom right of the window.                                                      .

You'll see the default underlay which ships with the SMART AirLiner wireless slate.  The only Background Properties that I found useful were the horizontal lines (white only) and then improving readability by picking a contrasting Center Color.  Modifying Image Properties, by clicking on the "Add" button and importing a JPEG, BMP bitmap, GIF or PhotoShop PNG was very helpful.                            .                        .

I could not directly take a Gallery template and directly import it into the Image Properties.  To use a Gallery template, you would have to export it as a JPEG (maybe the easiest way is to create a Notebook page, drag in the desired template, name the page, and then File/Export as a JPG).  I used Paint Shop Pro to do a screen capture and then saved it as a JPG.  Still, this new feature of Service Pack 5 is the EASIEST way I've seen yet to create AirLiner underlays.

Another cool feature is the ability to create your own AirLiner tool strip, with a palette of up to 11 tools.  In my example above, the bottom tool is the Lock Out AirLiners tool.  Unless it's the AirLiner that the teacher is going to use, that's probably not a practical tool.  Most of the Floating Tools can be assigned to the AirLiner tool palette.  The customization interface is very similar to the Floating Tools and the Start Center customization interface.  If you are using AirLiners, this feature is a good reason to upgrade to Service Pack 5.

Win OS Service Pack 5

Vista support (32 and 64 bit) and more Gallery content may be the most useful aspects of SMART Board software 9.5 Service Pack 5 (released on Feb. 23) for many users.  The Educators Essentials Gallery now contains 5,395 items, including a few pieces of art, including Van Gogh's Starry Night (pictured) and Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.  There are new NASA images, pictures of American presidents from the U.S. National Archives, Flash double dice and other Flash interactive media.  (You don't need Vista OS to run Service Pack 5, all you need is a Pentium II 450 mHz computer, running Windows 2000 or higher, 128MB memory, and 512MB storage.)

If you use an AirLiner in the classroom in conjunction with your SMART Board, Service Pack 5's ability to lock out AirLiners by a SMART Control Center Strip modification is HUGE.  When I first started using the AirLiner in teacher inservices, I had to keep collecting the AirLiners when I wanted to take charge of the class, because "students" would keep playing with them, and I wouldn't know which tool was selected.

Now, you can add the "Lock Out AirLiners" command to your Control Center Strip, and simply click on it, when you want to disable the AirLiners in your classroom.  Here we see a Notebook file with one of the new Gallery images of President Richard Nixon (ironically showing his famous victory-peace sign to a crowd, with a gas sign in the background during the oil price crisis, now THAT's an interesting picture).  When you want to unlock the AirLiners, just click on the "Lock Out AirLiners" button using your SMART Board or your computer, and the AirLiners are again able to communicate with the board.  (Look for tomorrow's entry on creating AirLiner underlays, as another feature of Service Pack 5.)

In earlier versions of SMART Board software 9.5, the service pack upgrades were easy to install.  In Service Pack 5, you MUST uninstall your existing SMART Board software, then download and install the new version.  You need to go to the Windows Control Panel and Uninstall your existing SMART Notebook software.  Because I installed the software as a Start Up file (which most people do), I had to go into the Windows Task Manager to stop the SMART Board services (alternatively you could restart your computer), before being able to successfully reinstall Service Pack 5.  The Galleries also had to be uninstalled and reinstalled (that was done automatically).  The whole process took over a half hour, so be prepared to chill out and take a coffee break. The good news is that if you created custom Gallery content in My Galleries, those Galleries remained in tact, and all SMART Notebook files on your computer were still there and useable after the reinstall.  If you're not a saavy computer user, the whole process is a bit tricky, and you might want to ask a techno-geek for some help.

Elementary Gallery files

During my SMART Master's Certification Training held in Chicago, I had the pleasure of meeting Sandy Armstrong.  She is an elementary level technology guru from the Auburn Early Childhood Education Center in Auburn, Alabama who has created dozens of usable gallery collection files and templates.  These files include chants, letters and sound activities, number activities, calendars, lunch count, and even story organizers.  Her ideas are very creative, convenient, and practical for all elementary classroom teachers.  Sandy can be reached by email at sarmstrong@auburnschools.org    

Here is some information about her school.  It houses 26 kindergarten classrooms in one building, and they are engaging their students with SMART Boards daily.  Their school was also selected as a SMART Technologies Showcase School and will soon be featured as part of the case studies on SMART’s website.   

To add her files to My Content section of your gallery go to the schools/s website:

http://www.auburnschools.org/auburn_early_ed/pagesAEEC/technology_at_aeec.htm

Open the SMART notebook file you want to save

1.    Right click on the single gallery item you want

(OR) add the entire file by right clicking above the blue picture and background tab

2.    Select Add to My Content…

Enjoy!!

Julie Ann Sawall

Jasawall@new.rr.com

Math Symbols and Notebook

   "Is there any way to use Math Type in SMART Notebook?" asks Tremper HS math faculty, Stan Wilson.  Changing the question around, we will show you how to type math symbols in SMART Notebook 9.5.  Click on the Text Tool (A) and you will get a tool palette, which includes three math symbol groups on the right end of the palette. To type in a subscript, type in the variable "b", then type on the "Subscript" tile to select it, and then type in the subscript "2". Type in the variable "c", then click on the "Power" tile to select it, and then type in the power "3". 

  In Notebook, these values are objects.  To resize, just click on the objects with the Pointer tool, and use the white circular resizing handle and pull down and right to resize this bigger, so it's easier for students to see.  You can also click on the triangle on the upper right, and ungroup, then draw a box around each variable to regroup the variable with its power.

The last tile gives you an extra row of symbols on the Text Tool pallette.  Clicking on those new symbol tiles gives you pull down menus of additional mathematical symbols to click on, to insert into an equation that you're creating with the text tool.

  Since I wasn't a math major, I am clueless to what some of these math symbols are.  Hopefully these tables will help you in quickly writing mathematical and scientific equations using SMART Notebook.  If you don't have the current version of SMART Notebook, click HERE to download it.

46 New FREE SMART Notebook Files

  Since January 1, 2007, SMART Technologies has put 46 new SMART Notebook files for educators to download on their website, bringing the total to 837.  Most of these new files are middle and high school oriented, in the areas of English, Math and Science.  Giving a Speech is designed as a one or two class period activity, where students plan a speech on their favorite movie (or other topic selected by the teacher).  At this screen, the teacher starts the Flash timer for 10 minutes, to allow students to do seat work in planning their talk.

  Students are then asked to brainstorm about effective public speaking topics.  The teacher could ask students to come up to the SMART board to write their ideas, or call on students for their thoughts.  Using SMART Notebook, the teacher could make additional pages for more ideas, and group ideas together by pointing and dragging.

  On this prepared Notebook page, the teacher clicks on each bullet point, showing five most important public speaking techniques.  This screen shot of the entire Notebook file shows how you could use the page sorter to navigate to prior pages to see if the students brainstorming ideas were covered.  Other pages of this Notebook file include a timer set for three minutes, for individual students to do their presentations.  A teacher notes page suggests that the teacher deliver one good and one poor speech, and lead a discussion differentiating between the two speeches.

Deploy SMART Across Your Networks

   Windows OS system administrators can now download a newly released Administrator's version of SMART Board Software 9.5 for better network management and software deployment.  Features include silent installation of the software and uninstall of previous versions, silent install of language packs, Gallery files, and remote service pack install.  Network administrators can also customize online resources, such as adding links under the online resources section of the Gallery tab to access websites directly from Notebook.  Using this install method, users can be enabled to share lesson activities connected to a shared folder.

The Installation Guide for System Administator's discusses command line installation and customization, how to set up user computers to share Gallery content from a networked server, creating customized "My Content" and "Team Content" folders, linking Notebook software to a RSS feed, and doing service pack maintenance.  Troubleshooting information and numerous tips for system administrators is included in this guide.

Update Your Gallery

  The Flash Card Generator is a new Flash item in the recently expanded SMART Notebook Gallery (now containing 4,922 items).  Some new templates include: monthly 2007 calendars, chemistry periodic charts, more earth science and biology diagrams and additional graphics in many categories.  Flash animations include a real time clock and new timers, Math 100 Squares, and a Flash Card generator for basic math operations.  Here we are showing the new Flash Card generator, on the left, where you select operations, difficulty level and number of problems, and on the right, where students use the SMART Board to write in answers.

  You can easily upgrade your SMART Notebook to version 9.5.78.4 by opening Notebook, pulling down on the Help menu to "Check for Updates."  You can automate the process by clicking on the "Check for Updates Box" and entering how frequently you want to check for updates. 

  Other tips: You can resize any Flash Gallery item by dragging it into a Notebook page, then use the hand tool to "click and drag" on the "bubbles" on the lower right corner of the Flash animation.  To lock in place, select the Flash animation, pull down on Format, drag to Locking, then Lock Into Place (Window users can also select the Flash animation, right click to get a Properties menu, drage to Locking, then Lock Into Place).

New Service Pack 4

SMART Board software 9.5 service pack 4 is now available for download.  What's new is a 12-point alignment, Windows XP Ink Aware support for OpenOffice software and Hebrew and Hindi languages.  Macintosh OS updates include enhanced Flash Gallery items and automatic checks for software updates.  Linux OS updates include support for Debian (Sarge) and Ubunto distributions.

InkAware is the ability to use SMART products in conjunction with other software, write on your board and imbed the picture easily into the other program.  InkAware also can convert what you write on the board into text.  PDFs on InkAware and Microsoft Office products, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Visio exist.

Smart also has a software accreditation program and a SDK (Software Developers Kit) for creating additional InkAware software programs.  Programs accreditted as "Enabled" and "Selct" are InkAware.  As of today, software that is InkAware include: Microsoft NetMeeting, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Paint, Windows Journal, Office OneNote, Visio and Live Meeting. Also CorelDraw, Corel Presentations, Corel Grafigo 2, AutoCad, AutoVue, Volo View, DWF Composer 2.0, Imaging, ArcView, OpenOffice.org Impress, Draw, Writer and Calc.

Spanish Notebook Files

  My friend, Spanish language teacher, Ruth Wieland asks "What about Espanol notebook files?"  There are 80 Notebook files translated from SMART's Educational file collection, in all subject areas and grade levels.  This notebook files were not originally designed to teach Modern Language concepts, but designed for curricular areas and then translated into Spanish.

  Another site is UK's eRiding, which hosts downloads for Food, Drink and Shopping, Numbers, Pets and Animals, and Weather.  Spanish, French and German versions of these Notebook files are available for download.  These titles include Spanish vocal tracks for additional student practice.