Webspiration

Webspiration™ is the new online visual thinking tool that helps you capture ideas, organize information, diagram processes and create clear, concise written documents whether working individually or collaboratively. With integrated diagram and outline views you can think visually, structure your work effectively and express your ideas in the ways that communicate best

4Teachers Family of Tools

4Teachers.org has many time saving resources for teachers.........

• Construct online quizzes that can include multimedia
• Create customized rubrics in English and Spanish using Rubistar
  
• Educational Games for students to polish math and language skills
• Provides tools for students to write persuasive essays
• View thousands of online lessons or quickly create your own
• Post your own online class calendar with hyperlinks and projects

Delicious

Are you having a hard time keeping track of all the interesting Web pages you find? Would you like access to your bookmarks from any computer? Delicious can help.

Delicious keeps all your bookmarks in one place so you will never lose track of your bookmarks again. Since we store your bookmarks online, you can get to them from any computer, whether you're at home, at work or on the road.

Wordle

"Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like."

Think of the many ways you could use this with your SmartBoard!

Discovery Education

Looking for video to enhance your lessons? Sign up for a free 30 day trial with Discovery Education. Then let your administrator know how much you like it.

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Learned of this site last year while completing CLAD program online. "The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You'll understand language in a powerful new way."
Visual Thesaurus

National History Education Clearinghouse

"Designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom"
National History Education Clearinghouse

Smartboards In The News

Two Articles that discuss the impact of interactive whiteboards in the classroom
It Makes Teachers Touchy

Interactive Whiteboards Transforms Local School Lessons

Differentiating Instruction With A SmartBoard?

Read the article from the link below
Six Reasons Why Differentiating Instruction With Technology Works
By Heather Ellwood

Document Camera Ideas

Click on the picture below to download a resource with many ideas on using your Elmo in the classroom.

Notebook Software Lesson Activities

If you have searched the web at all you know there are tons of Smart Notebook downloads you can find created by teachers and school districts across the globe. Here is the official Smart website link where you can search and sort hundreds of downloadable activities by grade level, topic, date created, etc. Check it out.

Notebook Lessons - Elementary

PowerPoint 2003

Many of the textbook companies now include PowerPoint shows as a way to present the material to students. If you would like to create your own shows and don't know how or need a refresher course, the links below will help.

PowerPoint 2003 in the Classroom
PowerPoint 2003 Courses

Many Ways to Use Your Smartboard More Effectively

Check out the two links below if you want to learn more "tricks"

Ten Ways from elearnr

37 Ways from Google Docs

Organizing It All

Instead of putting a paper version under your document camera, try using the resources below and locate the perfect graphic organizer to use in a SmartNotebook page.

Graphic Organizers (from Teacher Vision)

Graphic Organizers (from Education Place)

Graphic Organizers (from ABC Teach)

Graphic Organizers (from Houghton Mifflin)

Overwhelmed With Searching?

As I search the Internet for useful SmartBoard sites, I am often overwhelmed at all that is available. In the future I hope to organize and link to some of the better sites on this website. If you want to hone your own search skills, click on the link below.

Four NETS for Better Searching

Welcome to SmartBoard Talk

The purpose of this web blog is to provide resources for Union House teachers to learn about and use the Smartboard in their classroom.  Look at and use the links listed on this page and let me know if you find new links I could add as well.