A Smartboard Notebook "How To" Book Now Available

Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates
The book is finally here. "Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates" is a book full of great ideas for helping you make lessons for your Smartboard. It is a 'HOW TO' book of using SMARTBOARD notebook software. It is an excellent resource for beginners to advanced users. The book explains in great detail how to make and use any of the 25 teaching templates that we have covered in the Podcasts. It is full of color cardstock pages. It is spiral bound with laminated front and back cover. This is a great resource for people to have something in their hand to explore as opposed to just looking at instructions on the screen. The book is written by Scott Miller and David Sladkey who host the Teaching with Smartboard Podcast. For more information click here. To see some sample pages please click here. The cost of the book is $16.95 plus shipping.

Click Here to goto Teaching with Smartboard to purchase the book.

Battleship for Introduction to Algebra Students

http://www.teachforever.com/2008/11/coordinate-plane-battleship-game-2008.html

I got this idea from Tom DeRosa and his blog http://www.teachforever.com/ I have modified his original document to work for my needs.

All the students will place their 3 boats on their grid covering the correct number of points.
The teacher will shoot random shot to all students in the class. Everyone will write this down on their paper. Students will put a O for a miss and an X for a hit.
The teacher will then call on a student to fire at back. Everyone will write down this coordinate on their paper. The teacher on the Smartboard will write a O for a miss and X for a hit.

This will go back and forth until someone wins. Usually the students will win since the teacher is randomly firing.

Tom DeRosa suggests having the student explain where the point is when giving it to the rest of the class. Such as "its in the first quadrant." It is on the y-axis. Or things like this.

I've attached the lesson that I have revised from Tom DeRosa .

By the way, I have included sounds in the smartboard lesson to add the fun of BATTLESHIP.

Give it a try.

Word Document Battleship Worksheet

Smartboard Notebook Document

PDF of Smartboard Notebook Document

Clicker Circuits

My colleague Tony Schlorff made a lesson for our Introduction to Algebra Team. It was a Smart Response 10 question review. I used it the other day and it worked great. He has the questions set up all over the room. They are numbered. The students each take a clicker and log in with their ID. They then can walk around to any problem they choose. They then put their answer at the appropriate number on in the clicker. They then answer all 10 questions. They are constantly MOVING around the room to go to each question. Once they get all 10 questions, they submit their answers. They will then get a chance to see which problems are correct and which are not. Most importantly, I get a can get a printout of the types of questions that were most missed. I also get a idea from tagging my objectives which objective was most missed. I know now which problems I need to work on for the next review.

If you haven't used the CLICKER system, you should try it. It is a great way to get instant feedback on my students learning.

Another thing that I can do is identify my students in thirds for the next review. This little review sets up well for differentiated learning groups for the next day.

If you are interested in looking at the smartboard notebook document click here.

If you would like to see the document as a PDF click here.

The Cube A Differentiated Instruction Lesson

In my Introduction to Algebra Class we did a lesson covering the area of a triangle, rectangle, and a parallelogram. We used a differentiated lesson idea of making a cube. The students wrote questions on 5 sides of the cube and then their answers on the 6th side of the cube. On the five sides students had a choice of what types of question s to put on it. They could choose easy, medium or difficult questions. The students would then use scissors to cut out and tape together their cube. Once the students were done with making the cube, they found another student to roll the cube with. They would then they would do the problem and then check with the answer side of the cube. It turned out to be a great activity of choosing problems and checking their answers. I have attached a link to the the activity that I did.

The activity

http://www.box.net/shared/otnppdx8x3

A PDF Cube

http://www.box.net/shared/ie9c57l7mn

So Many Flags on this Veterans Day

The note read "I miss you Dad". It was a note that a son had written to honor his Dad at the Naperville 2009 Flag Memorial. The memorial has 2009 flags set up in a park in Naperville. It is amazing. It really struck me that this man gave his life for his nation. His son knows the meaning of that full well.
I took a 1 minute video of all the flags today. Hopefully you will just get a glimpse of it's power. It has made me reflect on this Veterans Day that so many people have died for my freedom. We are certainly blessed. I think it is worth while to discuss the importance of honoring our veterans this week with our students.

Changing Seats and Interview Questions

I have my students change seats every chapter. I often have my students work in pairs throughout the class. So this change of seats is really a change of class partners. This change of seats and change of partners typically occurs on the first day after a test. We change seats and then I have the new partners interview each other. I just make up random questions for the students to ask each other. After they interview each other, I pick students at random to and ask them to introduce their partner, and then answer one of the questions from the interview. It does take a little time out of my class, however, I believe it is well worth while to create this type of community team spirit.


INTERVIEW QUESTIONS and Changing Seats Directions (I give my students these)
We will change seats every chapter.
The purpose of Interview Questions is to get you to know your partner a little bit before you work with them on Math.
You do not need to write them out. However, you might be asked to share part of your interview with the rest of the class.
Students will be picked at random to share their interview with the rest of the class. Remember, to introduce your partner first, and then answer the question that we are on.


Interview Questions
1. What is your name?
2. What are your activities and interests?
3. What extreme sport or activity are you most afraid of? (like 1/2 pipe snowboarding) Why?
4. What former president (living or not) would you like to have a conversation with?
5. Rank the following restaurants from best to worst: Outback, On the Border, Mongolian BBQ and Maggiano's.
6. What insect do you like the most, and hate the most? Why?
7. Without giving a name of a person, give a few positive traits that you admire in someone.
8. Tell about your pets and their names.

Using Flip Videos to help students teach students

We used the class set of Flip Videos last week. It worked out well. The students worked in pairs and solved a word problem from the section we were on. It was actually a homework problem. We have desks that can be written on. So the pair of students wrote some key information about the problem on the desks with their whiteboard makers. Then, they each explained how to do part of the problem. They watched what they did and if it wasn't good, they redid the problem. If they liked what they did, they gave me back the Flip Video and I downloaded the video to my computer. I then put the videos on YouTube and linked them to my site. Students then could watch the different problems from home with the added benefit of stopping and rewinding the video if they needed to.
The rules were simple. 1. Make sure your problem is correct before you explain it. 2. All people in the group must take a turn in explaining how to do the problem. 3. It must be 3 minutes or less in length. 4. You must do the video in one take, so plan out what you want to say. 5. Lastly, have fun.
See the video for an example.

Here is the link to other Flip Video Problems

http://dsladkey.googlepages.com/flipvideos

How have you used Flip Video's in your class?