Ed+games+for+Smartboard

= __Educational Games Using the Smartboard for Elementary ELA Classes__ =

Today's students, known as the "Millennials", are different from students in the past. They are techno-savvy, proficient at multi tasking, are motivated by graphics and animations, and seemingly have a need to learn differently than their counterparts of fifteen years ago.Many teachers contend that the students they are now teaching are wired differently because of their exposure to the digital world. Researchers who have been studying the Twenty-First Century student agree and have, in fact, found that the neural pathways in the brains of these learners has been affected because of the constant exposure to multiple, overlapping sights and sounds. Because these modern day students see play as work and work as play, educators are now exploring new means of integrating technology and game-based learning to motivate their students to be more actively engaged in their lessons.

The SMART Board is one tool that teachers are finding successful as a way of integrating educational games with technology. Because the SMART Board is an interactive whiteboard, it allows students to interact with their lessons while being exposed to the graphics and animations that motivate learning. The information compiled below will assist teachers in finding the necessary educational games and resources for the SMART Board.


 * Teacher Resources**

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ Cool Tools for Schools is an exemplary online resource site teachers can use when looking for 2.0 Web tools or educational games which can be used with the SMART Board for creating interesting and engaging lessons and activities.

[] Educational Technology Users Group provides this online resource site for teachers who are interested in more information on implementing educational games as a tool for learning. This site is divided into two section; one section is titled Articles and Information which provides great articles and research on the use of educational games in the classroom; the second section titles Games Resources provides teachers with links to educational game sites which can be used with the interactive whiteboard.

[] Topmarks, out of the UK, provides free resources to help teachers find interactive whiteboard activities to teach a large variety of ELA topics for the elementary classroom. This site also provides teaching resources, homework help, and educational websites for students, parents, and teachers.

http://smartboardterminal.wikispaces.com/Learning+Games Teachers can utilize this wiki as a resource for finding a collection of learning games that cover a multitude of content area and are ready to use on the SMART Board. This wiki was developed by an educator specifically for other teachers who love their SMART Boards. The creator also provides Notebook presentations for use that require no extra work by anyone and others that can be edited and revamped to fit the needs of the teacher's lesson. This is a very useful site to use for any teacher who chooses to use their interactive whiteboard for engaging their students in learning.

[] Smart Tech, the creator of the SMART Board, provides an "exchange" where teachers can find a variety of information and resources to use with the SMART Board. Available lessons cover all subjects and grade levels. Teachers will also find this site useful in finding standards-correlated lessons for any state in the USA. Connect with other teachers; find resources, tutorials, and technical support; learn about available software and tools for use with SMART Boards; much, much, more.


 * PDF Presentations**

__"SMART" Decisions for the Twenty-First Century Classroom__ This is a PDF version of a workshop which was created by Donna LeBretton, M.Ed. who is a training director at Valley Communications. This is a wonderful presentation that tells the audience who the Twenty-First Century learner is and what classrooms of today need in order to keep this new breed of learners engaged and motivated to learn. The author is an advocate for creating a "SMART" classroom with the use of an interactive whiteboard and demonstrates it's many uses for reaching all types of learners.  []

__What Are We Playing At?__ This particular presentation was created by Richard Van Eck, Associate Professor of Instructional Design & Technology at the University of North Dakota. He looks at digital game based learning as an effective means for student learning in today's classrooms and how to move forward in the proper development of DGBL that aligns with educational standards. He sites various sources to support the validity of using digital games as a learning tool. He goes on to tell his audience that game designers no longer see "learning and the game worlds as two separate activities" and stresses that educators, parents, and others must also stop thinking in this way. __[]__

Help your monkey get through the jungle collecting bananas. You'll swing through trees, jump over crocodiles, throw bananas, and lots of other crazy moves as you work to match the meaning with the correct word. Earn monkeys for correct answers and lose monkey for incorrect answers. This activity can be played at any level between second grade and sixth grade. [] || Game Objective: Identify the type of sentence correctly to move your fox over the game board. Choose from simple sentence, compound sentence, or complex sentence. This is a third grade level activity. [] || Play all the reading and letter challenges to earn stars. Get five stars and receive a certificate. This game is targeted at emergent literacy level readers. Spell words, identify same sound letters, check for reading comprehension, and do letter identification. This educational literacy game requires audio. [] || Targeted skill level: first grade language arts. Students practice putting their alphabet in the correct order by clicking the dots. The dots are connected as the student progresses and the finished product is a connect-the-dots drawing. [] ||
 * Examples of Educational Games for the SMART Board**
 * [[image:word_jungle.jpg height="89" align="center"]] || __Word Jungle__
 * [[image:sentence_sort.jpg width="149" height="96" align="center"]] || __Sentence Sort__
 * [[image:Super_Reading.jpg width="119" height="108" align="center"]] || __Super Why: Super Reader Challenge__
 * [[image:Alphabetize.jpg width="259" height="188"]] || __Alphabetize__

__**Less**____**ons and Activities for the SMART Board**__

__Phonics Lesson Activities__ - Scholastic provides a collection of 5 phonics lesson activities focusing on long a and o vowel sounds, R-Controlled vowel sounds, digraphs, and hard and soft c and g sounds. "These lesson activities help students embed early reading, spelling, and verbal skills with an engaging, hands-on approach that meets a variety of learning styles and needs." []
 * <Phonics**

__Figurative Language__ - This interactive lesson teaches about figuarative language used in reading and writing. Metaphor, simile, alliteratin, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and personification are all covered in this lesson with students demonstrating their knowledge along the way with sentence sorts. This free download is available from SMART Exchange. **[]**
 * <Reading and Writing**

__Verb Practice__ - This interactive lesson focuses on the three types of verbs: main verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs. It begins with a review on nouns and continues into what verbs are and how to identify each type. This lesson is filled with activities to keep the student engaged and checks for understanding. Images and resources from YouTube, United Streaming, and templates from the Notebook gallery were used to provide lots of animation and other digital materials which motivate and help students stay focused and on task during lessons. This is a free download provided by SMART Exchange. []
 * <Parts of Speech**


 * Research & Scholarly Articles**

__What Classroom Technology Has Taught Me About Curriculum, Teaching, and Infinite Possibilities__ This is an article from a magazine, written by Laura Christine Rochette who teaches high school English. She tells the reader how she happened to volunteer to use the new "gadget" that her school had recently obtained in her classroom. After getting some guidance from the school's tech support, she began using the interactive whiteboard made by SMART Products with her lessons. It didn't take her long to discover that the SMART Board wasn't a gadget after all, but a tool "for extending the horizons of teaching and learning." []

__Student Engagement, Visual Learning and Technology: Can Interactive Whiteboards Help?__ This scholarly article is written by William D. Beeland, Jr. The purpose of this action research study was to determine if student engagement increased with the use of interactive whiteboards as an instructional tool on student engagement. A total of ten middle school teachers and 197 students participated in the study. The study results indicated that students preferred using the interactive whiteboard in their learning, in particular, they liked the interaction they experienced in touching it and felt that they paid closer attention to the lesson with the whiteboard's use. [|http://scholar.google.com/scholarhl=en&q=student+engagement%2C+visual+learning+and+technology%3A+Can+interactive+whiteboards+help&btnG=] [|Search&as_sdt=0%2C23&as_ylo=&as_vis=1]

__The Effects of the Use of Interactive Whiteboards on Student Achievement__ This scholarly paper was written by Karen Swan, Jason Schenker & Annette Kratcoski, who conducted a research study to determine if student achievement was affected by the use of interactive whiteboards. The study was conducted in third through eighth grade reading and mathematics classes in a small urban school in Ohio. Results of the study showed slightly higher performance for students whose teachers used the interactive whiteboard for instruction, with students in the fourth and fifth grades showing the largest gains in their test score results. [|http://edtech2.boises][|tate.edu/spechtp/551/07_The_Effects_of_the_Use_of_Interactive_Whiteboards_on_Student_Achievement.pdf]


 * Videos**
 * [[image:Demonstration_Video.jpg width="240" height="173"]] || This is a YouTube video demonstration showing how easy it is to use the interactive whiteboard and some things that you can do with it to make it truly interactive. Length of video is 3:59.

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 * [[image:orienting_video.jpg width="240" height="173"]] || This is a YouTube video demonstration showing how to hook your SMART Board cables to the computer and procedures for orienting, or aligning, the whiteboard screen so it interacts with your computer properly. This is a very important step. Length of video is 2:27.

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International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
 * Organizations**
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National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
 * []**

//Michigan Department of Education// - Use this site to find grade level GLCE's for your lessons.All elementary grade levels for ELA are combined in this one document. []
 * Informative Websites**

//Edutopia -//A great website that supports technology in the educational setting. This site is a resource with loads of information that educators can use to find out what's happening in the educational world and in schools across the nation. []