TAP Tech Help Blog: May 2011

Monday, May 2, 2011

Accessing Holyoke School email

Here you may find the official information on accessing your Holyoke School webmail. The site gives you step-by-step instructions and shows you how to access your mail from any computer...

Find it HERE

Additional SMART Board materials

Here you may find some additional SMART Board instructional materials from the SMART Technologies company...

A library of training materials which include

Ways to integrate SMART technology into your curriculum
Stories from teachers who use the technology and strategies on successful implementation
Program add-ons
Tutorial videos

Microsoft Word on SMART Boards

SMART Board "Ink Aware" technology can be used with Microsoft Word as well.
What does this mean for you?

The SMART Board can recognize your handwriting and convert written words to on-screen text.
Take quick and organized notes by hand during class.
The SMART Board can recognize most all handwriting and does not need any extra software to do this function.

Find a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Word in the classroom on your SMART Board HERE

Excel on SMART Boards

You can also use the Microsoft Excel software with your SMART Board.

What can you do with this software?

create lists and organize data
take polls from students and record the results in real-time
teach students about mathematical functions in an interactive format

Find out more on the SMART-specific "Ink Aware" and other functions and shortcuts HERE.

PowerPoint on the SMART Board

Powerpoint can be used with your SMART Board as well!

What can you do with this software?

Create presentations ahead of time on your laptop and manipulate them on a large scale live during class.
Insert interactive exercises and make presentations more interesting for students.
seamlessly blend real-time SMART Board mark-up technology with PowerPoint presentations to allow for presentation flexibility.

Find out how in a step-by-step tutorial HERE

SMART Board hardware basics

The Pen Tray

The SMART Board tray has 5 slots, a RED, GREEN, BLUE, and BLACK pen and an ERASER

The SMART Board has sensors in each of the tool slots to recognize when one has been picked up.
Once you pick up one of the tools, you may write with your finger or the pen itself.
The color which is picked up most recently is the color which will appear on the board when you write.
KEEP AN EYE ON THE ERASER... if the eraser tool is picked up, the board will assume that you want to erase, regardless of other tools you may have picked up.

tip: if you lose a tool, not to worry, you may use any similar object or a post-it note to take its place. use this supplementary tool the same way you would use a regular tool (i.e. remove to activate, replace to deactivate)

Pen Tray Buttons

The SMART Board has 2 buttons on the pen tray

The first button is used to launch the on-screen keyboard (a substitute for the one found on your laptop computer
The second button is used as a control-click button. "Control-click" is the same as clicking the button on the right side of a computer mouse. As it does on a computer, the "control-click" function brings up a menu that allows you to copy, cut, paste, select, and more functions

TO FIND MORE TIPS, GO HERE

SMART Board basics 1

Click above to watch a 2 minute tutorial on some basic SMART Board functions.

The video covers how to

Use any program on your computer with a SMART Board
Use your touch to interact with your programs
Write notes on the display using the pen tools
Save your notes

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Technology Ambassadors Tee Shirts

Here is the final design for the Technology Ambassadors tee shirts! Design ideas came from our very own Technology Ambassadors at the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club. Each Technology Ambassador at HBGC was given a tee shirt for their help creating technology-related tutorial videos. Now they can proudly display their association with the Technology Ambassadors Program!

Microsoft Excel Workshop

Hello! On Tuesday, April 12th the Technology Ambassadors Program held an instructional workshop on Microsoft Excel from 3:30-4:30pm at the Peck School. Excel is an extremely useful spreadsheet application that can be used to organize data, such as student grades and test scores, and then display the information in charts and graphs.

There were 27 people in attendance at Tuesday's workshop and the TAP Team was thrilled!

For those of you who missed the workshop or those of you who would like to reinforce concepts taught at the workshop, below are helpful online resources and videos related to Microsoft Excel.

MICROSOFT EXCEL ONLINE RESOURCES

http://www.baycongroup.com/el0.htm: An in-depth online tutorial on Microsoft Excel 2007. It also offers a tutorial on Microsoft Excel 2002/2003.

http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/excel/index.html: A step-by-step tutorial on the basics of Microsoft Excel.

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line_excel.htm: A site that offers basic and advanced tutorials on Microsoft Excel. It also offers training on keyboard shortcuts and Excel spreadsheet downloads that can be incorporated into classroom lessons for students.

http://www.wallstreetprep.com/extrafiles/finmodeling/downloads/xlshortcuts07.pdf: A very useful reference sheet that lists keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Excel 2007.

MICROSOFT EXCEL VIDEO TUTORIALS