IWB Network Meeting - 17th March 2010

Here are some notes about the IWB Network Meeting held on 17th March 2010.
Thanks to Sam for hosting this at City of Ely.

Present:
Sam Taylor, Lisa O’Hora, Richard Hunt, Luci Maltby (City of Ely CC), Rachel Clarke (Cottenham VC), Steve Gales (Sir Harry Smith), Louella Prince (Netherhall School), Graham Willis (Neale-Wade CC), Fran Wilson, Richard Stuart (Parkside Federation), Mark Dawes (Comberton VC), Tabitha George, Cecilia Freer (Swavesey VC).

During the meeting several people shared ideas/methods/materials.

Sam demonstrated the use of some of the features of the SMART notebook software.
• Use animations to reveal answers. Click on an incomplete diagram to show what should come next.
• Four possible answers are shown. Clicking on incorrect answers makes them fly out. The correct answer spins in place to highlight that it is correct.
Ideas that work with both SMART and Promethean included:
• Use the “recorder” to replay ideas for pupils. This was felt to be particularly useful for pupils who might not have fully understood a multi-step method the first time around – they can watch it again.
• Use the reflection tool to make ‘bugs’ from pupils’ names. The pupil writes their name on the board, this may be rotated and is then reflected and grouped. The pupils can then add different features (eyes, antennae, legs, etc) to make it look like a bug. Sam had then animated them, which was time-consuming, but the pupils loved it!

Richard has been making extensive use of resizing. As an alternative method to hiding and revealing an object (one difficulty with this is remembering where to click!) Richard makes diagrams and text very small (using the handles in the corners of the image). He can see enough of the diagram to recall what it is, but the pupils can’t read them from a distance. Anything that is needed can easily be enlarged.

Mark showed a use of the camera tool that keeps the picture taken on the same page as the original. The copy can then be manipulated to highlight a particular issue. For example, to help determine whether a series of Russian Dolls really are similar to each other the smallest was photographed and then enlarged next to the largest.
He also recalled something that Fran had mentioned several years ago, which is that parts of pictures can be made transparent (right-click) on the SMART notebook. This made it even easier to see.

NCTM Illuminations. These have recently been updated. Mark likes:
Isometric drawing tool: http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=125
Pythagoras Proof: http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=30
Line of best fit: http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=146
Other materials here: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=3&grade=4

NRICH. There are a number of interactivities that are worth looking at. For example, the Factors and Multiples Game. http://nrich.maths.org/5468

Fran has been using the Cogs starting point on NRICH [http://nrich.maths.org/810 ]. One of the Keele University sites is now free to access: iwbmathstraining.co.uk
This has all of the Improving Learning in Maths (Standards Unit) materials in SMART and Promethean format. Fran demoed the files attached to A5; these featured vehicles passing each other and showed how this was related to the graphs of motion.

Richard was then reminded of Wisweb www.fi.uu.nl
Building houses was agreed to be a particularly impressive applet.

Question:
Is it possible to convert Promethean Files to SMARTboard …
This was only thought to be possible by exporting as PowerPoint. This loses any functionality.