Smartboard Smart Ink: Google Chrome now works with Smart Ink.

About a month ago, some of you may have been in the same boat as I, which is where the Smart Ink toolbar quit working with the latest version of Google Chrome.  This was a great loss, but easily overcome by just using a different browser.  You don't have to worry about it now.  I just installed the latest update for Smart Ink and this problem seems to be fixed.

Smart Notebook: Smart Ink toolbar now hides automatically

One of my most popular posts has been about the ability to turn off the Smart Ink, a product of the Smart Notebook and Smartboard system.  I really, really, really like Smart Ink and really don't understand why so many people have an issue with the toolbar being visible on their open windows.  I use Smart Ink all the time during my math class to write on top of PDF files, tests, quizzes and the like.  Well the cool thing is that Smart Tech has just added a new feature to the Smart Ink Settings.  You can now click a simple check box that will hide the toolbar until you use one of the Smartboard markers to draw on an open window.  In three clicks the set up will be complete after you have installed the latest updates.

Here is how:

1.  Install the latest Smartboard/Notebook updates.  Open up your Notebook software and click the "Help" option from the menu bar.  Choose the "Check for Updates and Activation" option.

 

2.  Click the "Check Now" button at the bottom right.  This will check to make sure you have the latest updates.  If you don't, the "whited out" buttons will appear.  Click the "update" buttons for both your Smart Notebook and Smart Ink.

3.  Now click the "Smart Ink" floating tool bar and choose the "Settings" option.

4.  Once in settings all you have to do is click the "check box" that says "Hide Smart Ink toolbars until you draw over a window."

Make sure you click the "Apply" button down on the bottom right of the Smart Ink Settings window.

This should help get rid of the toolbar until you need it.

Create a music score with noteflight.com

At last I have found a free music score creator.  I would have been willing to pay also, but wasn't sure whether or not the software was worth it.  Noteflight.com allows you to create and learn the software with full ability to create your own score.  They will let you create up to 10 scores with 15 instruments and still allow you to embed and share your scores online.  You can always upgrade and get many more options, but for now I can explore the software.  I truly have been looking for a means of creating my own music, not that I have the talent yet to do so, but it is something on my bucket list.  If you are a music teacher and you have advanced students then this software might be great for them.  If you are currently using a full membership of Noteflight, please comment below on how it is benefiting your music classroom.

Here is a quick tutorial one the benefits of Noteflight.

1.  Go to www.noteflight.com and create a profile/account.  Once you have an account and are logged in, click the "New Score" button.

2.  Decide what type of music score you are wanting to create.  You can either do a private or a shared score with the free version.

3.  Give your song a title and who the composer and lyricist are.  In this case that would be me.

 

4.  Down at the very bottom you can change the tempo of you music.

5.  The "Staff" tab give you the ability to play with your time and key signatures.  You can also add voice here.

6.  Now just start adding the parts of the music by hovering your mouse over the empty measure.  Click on the type of music symbols that you will need to create your music.  Just left click on a measure, moving your mouse up and down to place your notes in the right section.

7.  You can also create your music in HTML 5 which might be easier for you.  I personally prefer HTML 5 over Flash.  Give both ways a try.  To get to the HTML 5 music score creator, just go to "View" and select the "Switch to HTML5 Editor" option.  The layout looks a little cleaner, but the options are all the same.

8.  Below are some images of the HTML 5 version.

Use the comment section below to let us know how your experience with Noteflight goes.

Students create and embed comic strips into your class blog or website.

I have tried many comic strip makers and have them listed on my web 2.0 page.  StoryBoardThat though looks to be the best.  They have many backgrounds, characters, objects and sharing options.  The site is free to use and has paid services that will allow you as a teacher to monitor students work.  I think StoryBoardThat would be a great technology integration tool with classes like ELL and any class that requires writing which should be most of them.  Below you will find an example an embedded comic strip that demonstrates Amendment 2.  Like I mentioned, after the comic strip and story is made it is very simple to then take the code snippit and embed the image into your website.



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StoryBoardThat tutorial

1. Go to www.storyboardthat.com website and create a new account.  Then just click the "Create a Storyboard" link found at the top.

2.  Just drag and drop characters onto the storyboard.  There are quite a few to choose from.  Note also that you can add scenes,  text bubbles, stencils and objects or you can just upload your own.

3.  Once you drag something onto the canvas you should get options.  For example after dragging on this angry woman onto the storyboard I can now use the "handles" and re-size or rotate her.  I can change the color of her hair, skin, shirt, skirt, and shoes.

4. If i add a textable/text bubble, I will also get some more options like font size and color.

 5.  Down at the bottom you find your undo, clear all and add cells which will add more area to your comic strip.  You can also drag and drop your cells to reorder or rearrange them.  From this menu you also find your "Save" button.

6.  After you are all done creating your educational comic strip and click the "Save" button you will then be asked to give it a title and description.  Click the "Save Storyboard" button to view your final product.

7.  On the next screen to the left you will see some sharing options.  It is very easy to share to your Facebook, Twitter or your Google+ pages.

8.  At the very bottom you can also create a "New Storyboard" edit the one you just did or even delete it. A couple of really cool things you can do is download your comic strip as an image or even a PowerPoint.  And finally my favorite thing for me when it comes to web 2.0 tools is the ability to embed the final product into either my website or my blog.

9.  Once you click the "Embed" button you will get the code snippet.  Just copy and paste it into your classes blog or website for all to enjoy or learn from.

Creating this comic strip is fast and easy.  Try having your students create one as one of their options of reporting information.

Smartboard: Are they really going to charge an annual subscription fee?

I was hoping that this was a rumor I had heard on Google Plus, but it is in fact true.  Smarttech starting in April of 2014 will begin charging a subscription fee to their Notebook products.  It is called the "Notebook Advantage."  Smarttech I have to admit that I am a little disappointed.  I love your software and got my entire school district to purchase a Smartboard for every classroom, and now you are saying that I am going to have to pay a fee to get the product updates.  Not cool.  Unfortunately we are already invested in using the SMART products, and will probably buy, but I promise that as newer technologies come out we will now keep our eyes open for something else.

Sorry to my readers for my rant, but here is the link to the FAQ on SMART Notebook Advantage.

Add a little humor to your class website with a Voki.

A few years back I ran into the Voki website and thought it was a funny idea to create a Voki and add it to my website.  My students thought I was crazy, our internet speed was atrocious and I was still using a Windows 98 machine and my student machines didn't have the latest browsers so using Voki just wasn't worth it.  Now that our school is doing really well with technology integration and many of our teachers are creating class website, I though I would blog a little about Voki.  Voki is an avatar creator.  I literally only takes seconds to create an avatar that can speak to your students from within your website.  Below is an example of one.  This is one that literally took seconds to do.  I am on Christmas vacation so I didn't even have anything clever to say, but if you are interested in creating a Voki for your school website or blog, below is a tutorial on how simple it is.

 

 1.  After you create an account and log in to it at http://www.voki.com , just click the "Create a New Voki" button.

 

2.  Next pick a character and start customizing it.  You can add hair, change the mouth style, change its clothing and "bling" it out.

 

3.  You will notice a di once in awhile.  This will just quickly randomize the look of your avatar for you.  You can also manually change the features of the avatar's body as well as its color.

 

4. Now give it a voice.  The phone icon will let you call in and give it your own voice if you don't happen to have a microphone.  I prefer the mic option.  You can also have a computerized voice by just clicking the "key" button and typing in your message.  Finally you can also add a sound file from your computer to your avatar.

 

5.  Now choose a different background for your scene to take place in.

6.  Make sure you click the "Done" button each time you are finished manipulating part of your scene.  The "Players" button lets you change the style of the Voki's media player.

7.  Once you are done playing with and creating your Voki, just click the "Publish" button.














 8.  Give you Voki file a name and click "Save."

9.  Click the "Add to your site" tab and then copy the "Embed Code:".  Now just take that embed code and paste it into your "HTML" section of your website or blog.

Don't be afraid to let your kids try it out as well.  I think they would really like to create a Voki.

Google Spreadsheet: Update your Google Spreadsheets to the latest version.

Google has just updated their spreadsheet program with a few added benefits including using the program offline as well as some aesthetic features assigning each spreadsheet a different colored tab.  Here is how you go about updating the Google Spreadsheet program and a little tutorial on changing tab colors.

1.  Go to your Google Drive and click on the settings/gear icon.  Select the "Settings" option.

2.  Once in settings click the "Editing" tab.

3.   You will see a "New version:" section.  Just put a check mark into the check box that says, "Try the new Google Sheets."

4. NOTE:  Your old spreadsheets will be used with the older format, but your newer sheets will now have the latest features.  You can go through the "tour" by clicking the "Next" button your you can always skip the tour by clicking the "Skip tour" button.  The Google Sheets tour just shows some of the new things you can do with the program.

5.  That is all there is to changing over to the newer version.  To play with the ability to assign spreadsheet tabs a new color, just create a new spreadsheet from within your Google Drive.  Once you are in the spreadsheet document, just click the drop down arrow next to the sheet name, in this case "Sheet1."  Just choose the "Change color" option and pick your color.

6.  You can now see that the "Sheet1" tab has a blue line running below it. 

7.  Change each tab you create for coding purposes.

Create video lessons with questions from any Youtube video for your students.

Here is an excellent new concept and idea from eduCanon.  They have created a website that will allow you to take any Youtube or Vimeo video and create a lesson based on the video.  Again, an excellent idea.

Assign the activity to your students.  They will then log in and go to the lesson.  Next they will view the video that will have questions as you go along.  Your students will answer those questions which are then graded for the end of the film so that you can see how well they did.

Students will be able to view remedial material from anyplace in the world and their learning will be reinforced by some extra content.

Here is a tutorial on some of the features in the eduCanon system.

1.  Make sure you sign up at www.educanon.com.  It is free, but some of the premium features are going to cost some money.  Log in to the system.


2.  Click the "Build" tab at the top of the screen.

 3.  Next give your lesson a title and objective.  Also select the grade level, subject, and subtopic.  Also paste the URL to the video you want to create a lesson with.

4.  Now start watching your video.  When you come to a place where you would like to insert a questions, click the "Build Question" button.

5.   Just type the questions into the text box.  You do have formatting options.  Toward the bottom you can type in the answers.  Make sure that you select the correct answer.  If you need more answer choices click the "Add Answer" button.  When you are done with the question click the "Save Question at ..." button.

6.  You should now be able to view what you question looks like.  You can update it by clicking the edit button.

7.  As you are adding questions you will notice question marks being added to the bottom of you video's screen.  These are where you questions will be inserted.  Once you are done with your video lesson, click the "Finish Build."

 8.  A popup window will appear asking you to assign the lesson.  The "Assign Lesson" button will allow you to enter a calendar so that you can assign an appropriate date to your lesson.

 

9.  Just click the date you want your students to be able to access your lesson.

10. You will see your video lessons appear on the right hand side of you screen.  Just drag and drop them onto the lessons canvas.

 

11.  When your students view the lesson they will be prompted to answer questions at the specified video time.  They will then submit their answers.

12.  If you click on the "Lessons" link you can see all of the lessons you created.  There are three buttons on the video's thumbnail.   The first one that looks like an eye allows you to preview your lesson like a student would see it.

13.  The second button allows you to share the lesson.  Below is an example of a Bill Nye the Science Guy video lesson.  I only have the first three questions done so that you can see what it is like.  If you wait until the 27th second you should be able to see how the questions with the video actually work.

Comment below if you are using eduCanon in your classroom and let us know how it is going.