Advice

It's no surprise that the younger a teacher is, the more likely they are to know about technology in the classroom.  After hearing a current teacher of two years talk to the class about how she uses Smartboard regularly, it made it seem all the easier. She discussed how easy it was to create your own games and activities and also explained that though it is simple, it shouldn't always be used.  She showed the class just how important it is to know about technology.  She gave examples of situations she has been in and how technology, such as the smartboard, has helped her.  It was inspiring to hear a new teacher talk so fondly of not only her technology experiences, but her whole teaching experience as well. 

Discovery Education Video Streaming

It is usually a challenge to get a group of children to sit down and focus on a lesson for more than 30 minutes.  When standing up in front of them, the teacher can see the look of boredom in their eyes and knows that he or she should do something fast to regain their attention.  This would be a good time to have a whole video or a segment ready to present. 

Discovery Education makes this easy for educators by supplying them with thousands of videos.  However, it does not just stop there.  This is different from sites such as TeacherTube because it allows one to pick and choose which parts of the video they want to show and feel are relevant.  Teachers can search the website for specific subjects and use the video in their lesson.  The site is much more efficient than most because of the search and segment capabilities.  With an endless supply of video lessons, Discovery Education is a site every teacher should have bookmarked on their computer. 

SmartBoard Notebooks

SmartBoard notebooks are a wonderful addition to computers in the classrooms, labs and even at homes.  The software allows anyone, teacher, student, parent, to create a lesson.  It gives so many options to make the lesson even more successful by allowing the user to add links, images, and interactive buttons.  The buttons are beneficial because even if the student does not have the benefit of using the large SmartBoard, he or she can still have the same interactions one would while using the large board.  This software has some similarities to PowerPoint (such as adding images, links and animations), but the SmartBoard software is a step up.  It has a gallery of thousands of pictures and buttons that can make the game or lesson fun for the child to use.  Hopefully, the SmartBoard software can be installed in all computers in a school because it would be a shame for any teacher or student to not be exposed to this program.