I came across this really great Smartboard collaboration tool today. It is call the Extreme Collaboration. It is an add-on for the Smart Notebook that allows you students to use any device that has a web browser, ipad, ipod touch, tablets, phones and laptops, to connect with your Smartboard presentation. They can brainstorm together, answer questions, and be better participants in any classroom discussion. You can set it up to where it is anonymous or with a user name. I think I am going to prefer the anonymous mode but then again that could be a little dangerous at the high school level. Below is a tutorial on how to get started with the Extreme Collaboration add-on.
Tutorial
1. First you need to install the add-on. Go to http://www.extreme-collaboration.com/download/ and choose your operating system. This will prompt the download. Once it is downloaded click the file and install the program.
2. Now open up your Smartboard Notebook software. On your side toolbar click the puzzle piece icon which is where you find add-ons for Notebook.
3. Click on the "Extreme Collaboration" button.
4. You will need to create an account. You can see that logging in is optional, but if you do you can use the whole set of features that this add-on has. I recommend it.
5. Enter your email address and then click the "Get account" button.
6. Now open up your email and find the new email message you should have received. Click on the verification link. Now just fill out the registration information. This will then take you to their website where you can create classes and such and actually have your students login with user names and passwords. I don't know that I would go through all of that because they can just write in their name on the mobile device themselves.
7. After you are registered go back to your Notebook software and login.
8. You will now see your Session ID number. Your students will need this number. The best way to show it to them is to click the "Insert QR Code" so that it displays both the website, the number and a QR code for those devices that contain QR code readers.
9. If students have a QR code reader just have them take a snapshot of the code. If they are using a web browser, have them go to the "add2nb.com" address and then enter the number code that is generated.
10. On the student side of things it looks like this after they go to the website. They enter the number and then click the "Connect" button.
11. Now back to the teacher side of things, just create a new page in your presentation.
12. Now you just need to try each of these choices of activity you want to do. Random position places student answers randomly around your page. List will put their choices in a organized list. Stack puts their choices on top of each other. One of the options you can do is to have categories already listed in your notebook software and the your students will select the list to which they want to add.
13. Now click on the "extended settings" and play with these. If you allow images, they can use their mobile device camera and upload pictures. I like the senders name, because it identifies who wrote what. Allowing them to change their texting color is fun. Decide how many messages each of your students will be allowed to put onto your brainstorming presentation.
14. Once you are done with playing with your settings, click the "Start activity" button.
15. Back to the student side of things. This is the view from a laptop. Students will easily be able to add images from their device and change color. They just click the send button when they are ready to send their idea to the Smartboard.
16. Once they have sent in as many ideas that you allowed during your settings setup they will be blocked from sending any more.
17. Back to the Smartboard side of things you can see that I had set this activity up to be in list form. The student was able to upload an image and change colors to his ideas. Also because I had set it up to display names, you can see which student said what.
18. Then I changed my setting to random and it place the next student's information all over the screen.
19. Once you are done with the activity just click the "Stop" button and students will no longer be able to add information to your presentation.
I think that the Extreme Collaboration software is going to make teaching classes like Science, Social Studies, and Language are more interactive for your students. Give it a shot in your classroom and come back to this post and let my readers know how it went.
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