By John Mein

The third day of the 2012 SMART Exemplary Educator (SEE) Summit has come to an end and again it was another wonderful day overflowing with SMART activities.  We started our day with a presentation by Heather Lamb, SMART Educational Consultant, and discussed how to make our SMART lessons more engaging and interactive.  We discussed best practices using SMART Notebook 11 collaborative learning software and tips and tricks that will make your “blah” lessons POP to help retain the attention of your students.

After going through the creativity workshop with Heather, she had us modify a lesson that we already teach with to make that move from ordinary to extraordinary.  I do my best to make my lessons as innovative and interactive as I possibly can and still my lesson improved immensely.  This is the benefit I was looking for from the SEE Summit – the ability to learn something new from my SEE colleagues and SMARTians who are here at my disposal while in Calgary this week.

I’ve posted this activity on Parts of Speech to the SMART Exchange website, so keep an eye out for it in the next couple days. You can also access a list of my SMART Exchange resources here.

This morning was Heather was terrific and I plan on taking a second look at my other SMART Notebook lessons to incorporate these skills and update them to include features from SMART Notebook 11 collaborative learning software.

The SMART Learning Space and SMART Exchange were covered in the afternoon.  We discussed pros and cons to make each service better. It’s awesome that SMART listens and is willing to take the time to make the changes that we see as educators and frequent users of these services.  If you haven’t yet had the chance to visit the SMART Exchange website, please do yourself a HUGE favor and take a look at http://exchange.smarttech.com.  You can search by topic, subject, or even standards-correlated lessons.  Also, if you’ve created some content that you think would benefit others across the SMART nation, please become a member and set up your account, then take the minute to post your lessons.

Following the SMART Learning Space and the Exchange, we had the opportunity to see the various products that SMART provides in the areas of education, business and custom solutions.  As a relatively new teacher (I hit the five-year mark this year), I am very excited about the direction SMART is headed.  But unfortunately, my lips are sealed in this area.

It was another valuable day at the SEE Summit.  I can’t believe we have reached the halfway mark already!  Check back tomorrow for some more SMART tidbits from Calgary.

Thanks for stopping by,

John

Read other posts by John Mein

About the author

John Mein has been an educator for five years, teaching Language Arts at the middle school level in Kerrville, Texas.  John is a Certified SMART Board Trainer and a SMART Exemplary Educator. He was one of 50 chosen to attend the SMART Summit in Calgary this summer. Mein holds summer professional development sessions to train faculties and staff on effectively using the SMART Board interactive whiteboard and other classroom technology.  He has presented his SMART Games at the TCEA technology conference in Austin, TX. Mein continues to be a SMART and technology advocate by writing grants to bring more technology into the classroom.  You can find his accredited resources on the SMART Exchange website or on his Mr. Smart Trainer blog.