I have been using the SmartBoard since the beginning of the year. What I haven’t used until now are the clickers that go with it- the Smart Response system. I have used other clickers in the past. One advantage I saw right away in this system is that each student has a code to put into any clicker. The other clickers I had used, you had to assign students a number that went with a particular clicker. They had to get the same clicker every time which wasn’t really all that difficult until batteries started going dead. It was a huge pain to switch batteries and only slightly less of a pain to give them a different clicker and assign them a different number in the program. With this system, students can use any clicker and just input their number. It shows them their name so that they are sure they have put in the right number. I just had them use their lunch account number that they use everyday anyway. Teachers in the upper grades where students switch classes throughout the day suggested using those numbers. It would be hard for students to remember a different number for each class. Smart Exchange has countless lessons and activities to use for almost any topic. They also have ones that incorporate the use of the clickers. You can search for topics by grade level(s), subject, and type of lesson, including those that have Smart Response questions. The wonderful thing about clickers is that you get the results of everyone’s answers right away. You can see immediately how the class did and know right away if there is something that needs to be gone over again. It also shows you how each student did on each question. This is a great differentiating tool. You can see which students need more help on certain topics without having to check with them individually or without having to grade paper assessments and analyze them. The system does it all for you. There are many ready-made question sets for many different topics or you can make your own question sets. I was pleasantly surprised at how relatively painless it was to use the first time with my third graders. We did a lesson in math on transformations (slides, turns, and flips) that I found on the Smart Exchange site. After the lesson going over the different transformations, there were 8 questions. You can create a variety of reports once the questions are answered. This one shows an overview of how the students did. I cut and pasted it here. (I changed the names to x's for privacy.) A couple students couldn’t remember their lunch account numbers so I gave them a number until we can get those. Flips, Turns & Slides Quiz Massin 2012-13 Last Name First Name Student ID Mark Grade xxxxxxxxx 3 3 37.5% xxxxxxxxxxxx 5794 8 100% xxxxxxxx 2 7 87.5% xxxxxxxx 4 7 87.5% xxxxxxxx 3214 6 75% xxxxxxxx 9453 8 100% xxxxxxxx 3934 8 100% xxxxxxxx 8066 8 100% xxxxxxxx 4219 There is a report that is great for differentiating. It gives you the questions and the individual students’ response so you can see which questions which students need more help with. I was going to show one of the student’s reports here, but couldn’t block out their name. Here is part of one that I exported to Excel after I deleted the names. It has all the questions included, but I figured you could get the idea from just the first few that fit. Student ID Q1 Q1 Key Q1 Correct Q2 Q2 Key Q2 Correct 5794 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 9453 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 4 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3 FALSE TRUE incorrect B - Slide A - Flip incorrect 8066 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3934 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 3214 TRUE TRUE correct A - Flip A - Flip correct 2 TRUE TRUE correct B - Slide A - Flip incorrect I think this is going to be particularly helpful when reviewing for the SBAs. I will find or make some questions sets to see what needs to be reviewed the most. I won’t see my class until next Thursday. We are having inservices today and Friday, and I am traveling to Anchorage for the Curriculum Alignment Institute next week. When I return, my plan is to make a Screencast of my class answering some questions. I hadn't heard of Screencast before. I found a link to it on the Week 7 resources. Thanks, Lee!