Mr B's List of SMART Board Sites - List of SMART Board sites, lesson resources and other educational resources online

Click here: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/index.html

The Office of Educational Technology (OET) provides leadership for maximizing technology’s contribution to improving education at all levels. OET develops national educational technology policy and ensures that Department educational technology programs are coordinated and consistent, and support efforts across the federal government. In addition, OET supports the Department’s Mission and the President’s and Secretary’s priorities by leveraging the best modern technology.

The draft National Education Technology Plan (NETP) was released March 5, 2010. It provides the context and vision for how information and communication technologies can help transform American education. The plan provides a set of concrete goals to inform state and local educational technology plans, as well as recommendations to inspire research, development, and innovation.

just found this, some cool FREE online interactive visualizations of human anatomy

Link to 3d Animations: http://www.a3bs.com/3d-animations,an.html
Link to anatomy videos: http://www.a3bs.com/videos,v.html

From American 3B Scientific: “Welcome to the 3B Scientific® 3D modeling studio. The free animations are based on 3B Scientific® models and provide a unique 3 dimensional view of various anatomical structures. We’ve been working hard to improve and extend our anatomy animations. You now have the choice of viewing the 3D models as online animations, linking directly to the movies and downloading screensavers for off-line viewing and sharing with your friends and business partners.

Not sure what is your favorite, but, Mr. B’s favorite website for k-3 language arts is Literactive

Check out the English / Language Arts section of Mr. B’s list and search for your early grades k-3 to see Literactive and other similar websites. Any thoughts on other favorites? Let me know– thanks!

-Mr. B

There are many of you using Mr. B’s list to find great Math websites for your students / kids. It seems the favorites continue to be www.IXL.com, www.coolmath.com, and www.AAAmath.com. They each have some strengths and weaknesses, but, I’m curious which website is your favorite and why? If you would like to leave a comment, CLICK HERE

Otherwise, if you have not yet see the value of these websites, please PLEASE go spend a little time and check them out! They are great smartboard sites, great for computer lab practice, also great for home schoolers or kids who need practice on certain skills.

Have you folks been to www.education.com and seen their activity ideas? Cool stuff!

Tons of classroom activity ideas– Mr. B is a huge fan of activity-based learning You can search by subject and grade level, so, check it out by clicking here www.education.com

www.pppst.com/ <–CLICK ON THIS, “this site’s got more PowerPoints than a Hair Band’s got Hair Spray”

hey friends, please send me sites i’m not listing! Remember I’m focused on listing *free* interactive websites great for SMART Boards and interactive classrom… send them via the Contact Us button below– thanks!

I need some comments on this one, I’m curious your thoughts? I use SMART BOARD here to represent any/all Interactive Whiteboards.. what do they mean to you?

Complete the sentence: SMART BOARD is to my CLASSROOMS what _________ is to ___________

CLICK HERE to make comments!

Mr. B’s sincere 5-yr-old to his mother:

“Momma, you sure are getting good at cleaning.”

(HA)

Special Education teachers, have you been to the Priory Woods School site??  This is absolutely the best. 2 Million+ downloads of their materials says it all. CLICK HERE: Priory Woods Resources

 
This is the resource section of their Web site. From here you can download a wide variety of material including worksheets, curriculum documents, lesson plans and simple programs, which you are free to adapt and use in your school, college or home.

Alas, I’m proud to say my 4-yr-old has turned 5!  So from now on, 4-yr-old quotes will be replaced with much-wiser “5-yr-old” quotes!  WHOHOO!  Well, just for grins, here is one final quote:

Mr. B to 4-yr-old: “Did you have a good night sleep?” 

Cranky tired overly-dramatic 4-yr-old: “No I did not.”

Mr. B: “I’m sorry!  Why not?”

Cranky tired overly-dramatic 4-yr-old: “I kept having to get up to get Elliot’s Monkeys.” 

(I’m just gonna let you ponder that one LOL.  I should point out, Mr. B’s 5-yr-old has 3-yr-old and 1-yr old siblings, so, we will not have any shortage of funny quotes any time soon) 

-mr. b

Please sign up for Mr. B’s “Smart Ideas” newsletter for interactive classroom tips and tricks via email by clicking here

I know I know that almost sounds too stupidly good to sound true?! But yeah it exists! Its called “Petes Power Point Station www.pppst.com and it is truly a collection of 1000’s of pre-made powerpoints on every subject / topic you can think of. Now, Mr. B has to make it clear that I don’t endorse PowerPoint as a primary means of educating our students across the country / across the world.. I am too dedicated to my SMART Boards / IWB’s and the broader shift towards interactive technology-infused education that they represent. BUT, when ya need a powerpoint on The Cival War or Greek Architecture or you name it.. try www.pppst.com!!

-Mr. B

http://www.zamzar.com/ Folks I’ve used RealPlayer for quite some time as a method to getting Tube-style FLASH Video content into my IWB software.. the process involves a little too many steps. I just played around more with ZamZar (free online file conversion) and WOW, I really like it! I think its easier! This process still requires you to ‘download’ your video and other content AT HOME, and then bring it to your school… but Zamzar.com makes it easy.

At home, find a useful education video on one of the sites I have mentioned before. Then use ZamZar to actually *download* that flash video on your computer, thumb drive, etc. Well, once its YOUR file in “.flv” format, it can very likely be placed into your IWB software like Notebook, EasiTeach, etc! In otherwords– once you download a video via ZamZar, they are easy to bring to your SMART Board the next day. AWESOME!

For more info on this, please signup for my Smart Ideas newsletter here and I will include this in the next Tips and Tricks newsletter.

Later!
-Mr. B

I really like these guys, www.wavelengthinc.com, check out a sample:

Top 25 sites for free educational videos online:

http://www.refseek.com/directory/educational_videos.html <-- this site did a nice list of 25 websites to explore for *free* educational videos for classroom use. VERY cool, check it out!

Folks, many of you inquire about the best place(s) to find pre-made SMART Board lessons. This is the FIRST PLACE you should try if you are looking for pre-made SMART Board lessons, its called the “SMART Exchange”:

www.exchange.smarttech.com

Happy hunting!

-Mr. B

Mr B’s 4-yr-old is wearing his new christmas present, a Batman costume. After an hour of playing “superhero” with his cousins, they break for christmas snacks. His cousin, “Liz” changes OUT of her ill-fitting Superman costume and back into her colorful Christmas Pajamas. Upon resuming play, Mr. B’s 4-yr-old says, quite seriously: “Come on, Liz, you can’t save the world wearing THOSE clothes…”

Did you know Google offers a dedicated education site, including free software apps and tools for the classroom. Some AMAZING stuff here:

http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html

“Communicating with students outside of the classroom has always been a challenge. Google Groups has made it easy to keep in touch with my AP Biology students – they can post messages, discuss class content and ask for help. And since it’s an open forum, they can benefit from each others’ questions and feedback.”