Smart...boards!

  Today we learned how to use the Smart Board software called Notebook. This is an effective way of engaging children in interactive learning. This training will help us enhance our lessons. I have used Smart Boards in two of my placements but only used interactive games from websites and programmes the school already had. During this training session we were shown how to use a variety of tools that can be used to create a variety of exciting lessons.


  Once we were shown how to use the basic tools, we tried creating our own interactive activity which tied in with our topic of "People who help us". I decided to create a "move to reveal activity" that is targeted towards children in the Early Years. The children will take it in turns to come up to the board, select a question relating to the topic and if they get it correct they get to click a box which will reveal a section of a picture. Once all the boxes have been clicked, the full picture of someone who helps will be revealed. This encourages the children's participation in a questioning and answering sessions because it interactive and there is the added element of fun by trying to guess the picture under the boxes. It also encourages the children to take it in turns and they can help one another if they are stuck. It was quite difficult to manipulate the objects at first but after some time playing around with the software I got used to it. Although I think you would need some practise with this software, I definitely think it is worthwhile and beneficial to teachers lessons and the children's learning. It can also be used for lessons across the Curriculum!