Smart Technology offers a series of 2 minute videos to help you get acquainted with the Smart Board.  These videos can be found at the Smart Technology web site. Below are links to individual Smart developed tutorial videos.  Enjoy…

Notebook Software 10 Basics

Objects in Notebook Software

Smart Notebook Gallery

Notebook 10 Page Sorter

Touch, Write and Save 10

Outside my office is the school library.  Outside the library is a poster that says, “Closing books closes ideas.”  That phrase set me to wondering about what the cost of having information available to us via a “Cliffs Notes” generating machine - the internet search engine.  Wiki pages, web pages, blogs and the like provide a great opportunity to quickly become familiar with a topic - much like the Cliffs Notes versions of the novels I used to use back in the “dark ages” of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

It is easy to get a cursory overview of any topic via the internet.  These overviews probably save a lot of time and probably for the most part present accurate information.  But here is where I become conflicted - are we creating a society of learners that do not learn how to learn.  That is read the data - read the book - and really ponder the context of when something is being offered and the context of what is being offered.  Are we learning to be deep thinkers - reflective thinkers?  Are we learning to be critical - are we becoming subject to information manipulation?

I think we might be just that - subject to information manipulation.  Our individual realities can easily be swayed with photo-shopped images and real time blogs.   But do we check facts?  Do we learn to question outside the emotion that drives initail questions and concerns?

These are real concerns to me.  I suppose that as an old-foaggy I could be dismissed as such.  But in my life, some of my most enjoyable moments did not occur in quantity of what I learned but in the quality and depth of what I was learning and considering.   Learning to think in terms of quality and depth takes practice and requires that you might have to move yourself to a new point of view or new understanding.

I encourage us all to use the internet with our students.  I encourage us all to keep our eye on the value of looking at things in depth.  and … Deep examination takes time and commitment.  These are not qualities using the internet encourages - so we will have to do that ourselves.  Let’s encourage our students to read books and let’s teach them the internet is only one piece of the information puzzle.