SMART Board Reflection - December 2009

Blogging on being a SMART teacher



December 8th, 2009 by jennstewartmitchell


What have I done so far with my SMART board with my grade 7/8 class…


1. Grammar: Every morning the students complete Daily Oral Language Lessons via the SMART board. They seem to love the opportunity to not only discuss the corrections, but enjoy the opportunity to use the board.


Reading: I like being able to play video clips that relate to what we are studying (for example we are exploring Greek Mythology, I was able to view a pre-made ppt that explored Greece and ancient ruins etc. with the students. It was nice to have the immediate accessibility to the resource, so we could stop and discuss different images.


We also had a chance to examine a couple other websites that had resources that connected to what we were doing in Greek Mythology. One was Readwritethink.com and the other was scholastic.com. On the first site, there was an interactive story starter for writing a myth that we examined, after a class lesson on how to use the tool, the students went to their own computers and tried it out. On the second site, the students viewed the process in writing a myth and things to consider; then we analyzed other myths written by students from around the world. It was cool just being able to read and discuss as a class the writing and how they can apply points from our discussion to their own myths. The students are quite excited to post their own myths on this site and ”show those other kids… How it’s done” (note these are their words).


2. In math class I downloaded a lesson on Pythagorean Relationship. It was a short pre-created multiple choice quiz. Although it was a little easy for grade 8, I used the quiz as a warm-up for a couple of lessons. Then I found the graphics from the quiz (right angled triangles with attached squares) to be quite useful for other lessons… so I copy/pasted them into other math lessons for the unit. I use the SMART board daily for this class, because I can save my lessons and review them for the next day.


3. In Social Studies, I used the koosh ball game to create review questions for the lesson. It was fairly easy to create and definitely interactive.


4. In Arts Ed. we had a chance to briefly tour a virtural art gallery and I plan on using the SMART boards to explore other galleries and museums around the world. Just the size of the SMART board gives the students opportunities to view images in detail.


Drama – We are using the SMART Notebook software to create “interactive backdrops” to reader’s theatre presentations. The students inserted background images that they obtained from the internet (google images etc.), then incorporated some of the sound effects that is part of the notebook software (which of course was quite exciting). Groups each came up and took turns using the SMART board to get ready for their presentations. It was neat watching them navigate through the software. I didn’t have to help them… most of them learned how to use the program by watching me! They even know where to find different files that I have saved, usually I have comments like, “Oh that’s in ____ folder and it’s called ___.” It seems that inadvertently I am teaching them how to organize and navigate folders and files … just by chance.


5. Social – Having access to the SMART board has been awesome for teaching current events. I don’t feel like I am limited to paper sources or that I can only send them to computers to view cbc news clips without the benefits of discussion (plus it’s easier to view the SMART board rather than trying to get the class to gather around a computer, or having to connect everything for the portable SMART board). Of course the SMART board is super for viewing maps or images that connect to our unit on Resource Management. It was nice that I even found a great Notebook lesson on-line that relates to this topic.


So far in terms of a project that I would like to work on with my students, I feel that I am on-track. I have many ideas and ways I want to involve the students with the SMART board… from having the students post their writing and responses on Edublogs to an interactive presentation on renewable energy… For me, the issue is usually narrowing everything down.