Steps to Create Great Lessons with a SMART Board

A really good SMART Board lesson is really not all that different to a regular lesson. It needs to be well-organized, delivered at a decent pace, and involve activities to engage your students in learning the objectives you set out for them. SMART's Notebook is the ideal software to do all this because of the breadth of features that it offers educators. It is versatile, interactive, and can link to any other files and websites you need it to. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of it when creating your own lessons for the SMART Board.

 Good lessons are organized lessons. Fortunately, SMART's Notebook software has several ways to keep your lessons ordered and well thought-out. So, a good way to start creating your lesson is by adding a title page. Find them in the Lesson Activity Toolkit under the sub-folder 'Pages'. Here you can state your lesson objectives and add any notes that you want to remember.

You may also want to rename your pages so that you can see at a glance what is on each one. Do this by clicking the dropdown box on a page thumbnail, and clicking on 'Rename page'. Once renamed, you should consider grouping some pages together by topic or theme. In the page sorter tab, click the 'Groups' button, and then 'Edit Groups'. From here you can add new groups, rename groups, and drag pages into groups.

Finally, get all your resources together by adding them to the attachments tab. Here you can add any files that you would like to use in the course of your lesson whether they are Internet shortcuts, PDFs, videos, or other Notebook files. You can add a shortcut link to the file's location on your computer, or add a copy of the file itself. Either way, it will save you time during class and help maintain the pace of your lesson.

Keeping students engaged in SMART Board lessons is a lot easier when they are actively involved in your lessons. A SMART trainer once told me that my students should be using the SMART Board at least as much as I do, if not more. So, make sure that you work some interactive elements into your lessons to get students out of their seats and using the board.

• Use pull tabs to help hide or add additional information that is pertinent to your lesson objectives. You can find them in the Lesson Activity Toolkit by clicking on the 'Graphics' folder and then the 'Pull tabs' folder. Be sure to try the standard and interactive versions of this handy tool.
• Owners of a SMART Response classroom set can easily add some extra interaction by throwing in a few instant questions, or even an end of lesson quiz.
• 'Drag to reveal' objects are quick and easy to make. Start by writing the answer you want to hide. Then, create a shape, fill it, or use an object from the Lesson Activity Toolkit, and drag it over the top of your answer. Add some directions telling the students which objects to drag and you can use it with multiplication tables, science diagrams, vocabulary words and a whole lot more.
• Animate objects so that they fade out to reveal an answer, or spin around to signify the right answer when touched. To do this, click on an object's dropdown menu and select 'Properties'. In the properties tab, select 'Object Animation' and choose from the variety of options you have to animate an object.
• Try some interactive whiteboard games. They are great for review and can involve the whole class. Use them at the end of a lesson to check understanding, or to review a longer unit of study. You can find a great selection of game show type games, including downloadable files, if you read Interactive Whiteboard Games for the Classroom.