SMART Notebook vs Flash v 11.9.x in Windows 7

Here's the situation. Earlier this week I updated my SMART Notebook software and tweaked my presentation for a seminar with Northern Illinois University pre-service math education students. Last night, I was working through a final check of my SMART Notebook presentation. Much to my surprise, none of the Flash objects worked. Yikes.

Online I searched the Smart Technologies troubleshooting web site. There it was. "If the Flash objects in SMART Notebook no longer work, you need to downgrade the version of Flash installed on your system." The newest update for FLASH player 11.9.x is incompatible with SMART Notebook interactive FLASH objects. You need to stay with Flash v. 11.8.800.168. I was obviously not the first person to have this problem, as there were specific instructions given at the smarttech.com web site.

I backed up what I could not lose and tackled the downgrade, being sure to check the "Never upgrade" option in the Flash installation. Thought all was well.

Now, the Teacher Tools in SMART Response would not load. Yikes. I was borrowing the SMART Response clickers from DeKalb High School in the morning. I was sure when the receiver was plugged into my computer, Response would update and fix itself. No luck for me today. Teacher Tools was not loading.

I could not find the specific problem in the troubleshooting files. A call was made to SMART Technologies Support line. After trying many tricks to get it to work, the wonderfully helpful tech support people decided I needed a clean uninstall of all SMART Notebook v11 software. This was only 2 hours before I was to be at NIU - no stress here.

I got through the uninstall and reinstall. All is fine, except the Math Tools did not re-activate. I needed the activation code. I had it in an email somewhere, but I was not sure where. Now back to the phone to see if SMART tech could give it to me. They didn't have it, but it would begin with NM-. Quick email search found it. I entered the activation code, but still didn't see the Math Tools tool.

One last call. The tech walked me through what I had already done, then asked a question I should not need to be asked. It had been a long day. "Did you restart Notebook?" I couldn't really remember. One quick relaunch and my day got much better!

Thank you to those GREAT support techs at SMART Technologies!

Great fun with NIU Math Education Students

Today I had the privilege of working with Northern Illinois University Math Education preservice students. These students are observing and working with teachers and students in middle school and high school math classes. They will soon be engaged in full-time student teaching.

What an outstanding bunch of energetic and enthusiastic young adults! We had a great time working with SMART Notebook Collaborative Learning software and learning best practices for integrating this great tool into the math classroom. Stress not just how to do something on the SMART board, but ask why do it and how does it help students learn.

Their NIU teachers/coordinators are Mrs. Renee Olsen and Mrs. Bonnie Kersten. You could not ask for two more dedicated and excellent instructors. I taught with both of them in my tenure at DeKalb High School and always admired their passion for teaching and their skill at getting the best from their high school students. I can see this is what they now are doing at NIU.

What an opportunity these new teachers will have in classrooms - today and tomorrow. Technology in students' hands can do so much to make learning relevant and powerful, while giving teachers  responsibility to address that power and make it productive. Here are some web sites that might help you get started.  http://tinyurl.com/matheducniu With so many avenues to learning today, so many ways to collaborate and share, it is an exciting time to be a teacher.

Good luck to all of you - Kim, Courtney, Carrie, Janet, Lindsay, Dylan, Branko, Brian, Raghav, Nick, Mike, and Abbey!!! Have a fabulous student teaching adventure.

Good luck, NIU pre-service math and science teachers!

When I retired from my job as a full-time secondary math teacher, I guess I wanted a bit of a rest. I wanted to spend more time with family.

I also thought I would finally spend some time learning more about using new technology in classrooms. Weird, huh? Most people would probably want to step away from those things that had consumed so much time. But I do still love learning new things and sharing.

Over the past couple semesters, I have had the pleasure of working with math and science pre-service teaching students. I think back to those days when I was a new teacher. (Most of the parents of these college kids were babies at that time or not even here yet.) Two of my very good friends and former HS teaching colleagues are teaching these students at Northern Illinois University. They were excellent high school teachers, and I respected both of them for their subject knowledge and dedication to teaching.

My underlying messages to these new teachers - More learning takes place outside of the classroom than inside. Much of what you learn about using the advantages of technology you will need to learn in your own time. You are teaching at a very exciting time, yet with many challenges. Keep your passion alive.

One thing I do to help is sharing web sites that should help them get started. Good luck to these future teachers. The future is bright!

http://tinyurl.com/scienceeducniu
http://tinyurl.com/matheducniu
http://tinyurl.com/janetteachessmart

(Symbaloo is a great tool for sharing collections of web sites. One of those tools that every students should know about.)

SMART Notebook and MS Powerpoint

Do you have Powerpoint presentations with information that you would like to work into a SMART Notebook? Maybe there are images or text that you don't have time to recreate.

You can import these Powerpoint files directly into SMART Notebook using File/Import. However, there may be a slight glitch. I attempted this using SMART Notebook v. 10.8 in Windows 7 and MS Office 2010. I had saved the Powerpoint presentation as an PPT 2010 file, the default file type. The SMART Notebook translator was unable to import the file.

To get this to work, I had to save the Powerpoint file as a Powerpoint 97-2003 presentation file instead. After that, the import worked like a charm. For the most part this was not a problem, since importing these files to Notebook loses the animation and special effects used in Powerpoint. At least all the text and images came across nicely, and I can add the animation and special effects available in SMART Notebook.

Do you have SMART Notebook files that you need to pass on to a Powerpoint user? You can export the SMART Notebook file as a Powerpoint file. Open the file in SMART Notebook. From the File menu, choose Export..., then Powerpoint. Each page of the Notebook file is exported as a Powerpoint 97 slide. Again, you lose the interactivity from Notebook, but can add these effects in Powerpoint. Any interactive Java objects are left behind and replaced with blank space on the Powerpoint slide.

You don't have to completely redo those presentations.

QR Code Ideas

sites.google.com/site/janetteaches/

QR codes are finally showing up in lots of places, posters, magazines, web sites. Sometimes they direct you to a vendor's web site, sometimes to contact information, sometimes to special offers. I think they could be a useful addition to the tech integrated classroom and tech-savvy teacher.



A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a  two-dimensional  "bar" code that can store a web site's URL, plain text, phone numbers, email addresses and pretty much any other alphanumeric data you want to communicate. You need a scan app to access the code. Just launch the app, center the code image in the viewer guides and get to the info coded in the image.



So how do I see this used by a classroom teacher?

Review answers

How about coded answers to a math review? Scan the code at the left.

Maybe you have iPads in the classroom or students have smart phones. You might have different stations around the room, where QR codes are used for instructions. No one knows what to do at the station until they get there. Scanning the QR code of the URL with the device (iPad, iPhone, etc.) takes them directly to the web site, without having to fuss with getting the URL typed correctly.

You can scan a QR code being projected to a large screen or from a computer screen. If the camera can focus the image, it can read the code information.

Consider a student doing research in the media center. As they find web sites to use in research, have them create a QR code for the site. This is simply an image, so it can be stored or included in a document as desired. QR codes might be incorporated into a presentation done by students.

Have some fun with this tool. Put your contact information or your teaching schedule into a QR code. Print these on handouts or cards that you hand out to parents. If they don't know how to use the QR code, consider it a teachable moment and help them along.

The QR code is standardized, so any code-scanning app will be able to read any code image. QR codes have been used in other parts of the world for a few years and are finally getting more attention in the US. In theory, you can store up to 4296 characters, but with larger amounts of data the image resolution becomes important. Keep it well under the max character count.
<>  </><></> <>  </><></>

www.qrstuff.com

A web site that I have used successfully to create QR images is QRStuff.com. http://www.qrstuff.com/
At this site, you can create any type of QR code, then download the image. Print the image on business cards, web pages, paper handouts or post it to web pages or online profiles.


The scanner app I use on both my iPhone and iPad is called simply Scan. It is extremely easy to use, activating the QR code automatically once the device camera focuses in on the code. Scan, Inc. was founded by three friends in their college apartments in January 2011.

scan.me