SMART Training Notes

Tonight I participated in our local Regional Office of Education's SMART Board Intermediate Training- Session1. My notes from the training are below, both for my own reference and for anyone else to see some ideas I learned! 

New things I learned:
~Using the keyboard to read the words that are typed or written.
~You can change your pens to be defaulted to a different color/font.
~The color of the box changes for objects that are infinitely cloned.
~You can lock an object so that it can be moved but the size won't change, or you can lock it so you can move and rotate (but the size won't change).
~You can layer multi-colored text to give a 3D effect.
~Transparency layer lets you use the tools over the internet (or other software) and record some notes. Is there a unique use for this?
~You can change the default colors of the caligraphy pens just like the other pens.
~You can double click on a shape box and automatically type into the shape! Then you can drag the box smaller and hide the text.
~Use the "Groups" button on the tabs menu to organize slides into different categories. 
~You can add visuals to your "My Content" folder (specific to your computer)- just by dragging and dropping.
~Use the page recording feature to record directions to have students go follow. (save the file and it will save the recording)
~Looked at Lesson Activity Toolkit to see awesome ideas (Anagram- used to arrange letters for spelling, Sentence Arrangement- put phrases/sentences into the correct order- although beware the color never changes and kids catch on to that-, Hot Spots- has a neat human body checker!, Timeline editor is great for students to make timelines, the maps work by letting you drag the states or countries into the map on the correct spot.)

Things to look up or follow up on:
~teq.com - "free learning objects" (neat garbage can she showed us)

Ideas for use:
~Using table with table shade for vocabulary or review questions.
~Creating a Presidential Technology lesson, where students have to match up which president would have used which technology for communication.
~Use the "Category sort (image)" on the Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0 to have students put ideas into order (maybe PC troubleshooting tips!)
~I really like adding the question mark ? information button from the Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0
~Use the memory game tool to match pictures of famous "techies" with their names.

What I still have questions on:
~What's the point of "pinning" a page?
~Unit 5 has it set so that the "My Content" travels with the teacher's logins (so any computer you use with SMART notebook you can access your content)- this is really cool, can it be done at my school?
~Where is that US Map?
~How do I make the hidden tunnel?

Visual.ly Lets You Search Infographics

Visual.ly is a search engine for looking up infographics across various websites. With a quick search for "government" yielded about twenty results. According to their site they are working on a feature to let you create your own infographics, but you can currently upload yours to add to their collection. 

While doesn't make my top list of resources yet, it is definitely one worth checking out and keeping an eye on.