The smartness of SMART Notebook

SMART Notebook 11 has been a revelation to discover when it comes to teaching. It has the best parts of PowerPoint presentation, mixed with innovative features that make it a delight to work with. After using both PowerPoint and Prezi Presentation, I was still looking for an ICT tool that I could use in lessons that also made it more interactive. SMART Notebook is a collaborative learning software. As the picture shows below, SMART Notebook contains a tool bar which offers the chance for teachers to write on their slides using an interactive whiteboard magic pen. The chance to write notes and students comments on the board as the lesson progressed was something which was not offered when using Microsoft PowerPoint.

The pen is an interactive magic pen and is easy to use; just make sure you remember to calibrate the whiteboard first. You are also able to save these changes during the lesson, and therefore enabling you to use notes as examples for other lessons or comparing answers of various groups. SMART Notebook has made me confident in using ICT in my teaching, mainly because once you know how to use the various functions, it is easy and accessible to use. It feels more modern and educationally-geared than PowerPoint. When it came to doing my assessed micro-teach lesson, I chose to use SMART Notebook.



What was really useful about using SMART Notebook 11 is how it contains activity builders, images from multiple subject areas that can be inserted into my slides and also the ability to erase words that I write using the toolbar eraser icon. I created a 'drag and drop' feature in my presentation that meant that students in my micro teach could come to the board and drag written sentences with their hands to the correct columns, which I had created. This interaction worked well and got all of the class involved. Using SMART Notebook has made ILT a fun integration in my lessons and it is not an intimidating software for the teacher or the student. Without a doubt I will use SMART Notebook when teaching in the future, and it has eliminated my reliance on PowerPoint. The smartness of SMART Notebook really does overwhelm the power on Microsoft PowerPoint.

Below, I have added a youtube clip of a user going through the features of SMART Notebook 11. It is a useful introduction into the amazing features that SMART Notebook can offer. Give it a go and it may just transform the way you teach:

References:

Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCr4fkMrQks [Accessed 29 December 2014].