Monday, May 24, 2010

Using Exam View with Classroom Performance System(CPS)

Did you know that you can use your Exam View question banks with your Classroom Performance System(CPS)? You may currently be using your Exam View question banks but have been hand keying in your questions to the CPS for your students to do their reviews.

There is an easier way to import your Exam View question sets directly to CPS so you do not have to hand key in the questions or use Verbal questions. How you may ask?

First you will have to have the Exam View CD in the computer or the content loaded to a location on the system where you have access to it. After you have opened your CPS software make sure that you are on the Prepare Tab --> Lesson & Assessments section.
Now Make sure that your database is showing on the left hand column of the screen and select it by left clicking on it one time. Once you have done that click New button and Select Lesson and create a new Lesson with the name of the Exam View question set or something that is closely related to it so that you do not have to search for it. After you have created your new lesson then it will show up under your database in the left hand column.


Right click on the new Lesson and choose Add File(s).. from the list to open the search dialog box where you will now search for the location of the test banks you want to upload. Before you can see the questions on the right hand side of the screen you will see a small dialog box pop up that asks you the Location Details of the question set. You have to answer this two times by selecting North Carolina form the drop down list. Once this is done you will see the test bank questions show up on the right side of the screen. **The questions cannot be modified from their original format.**

Now that the questions have been uploaded you now click on the Engage Tab --> Lesson & Assessments and choose the appropriate question set you want to deliver and engage it for the students to begin responding. **Remember for a Student Paced test you must select Assessment Setup and choose Student Paced before you click on the Engage button.**


Images provided by:
eInstruction CPS version 6.51

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Fun Interactive Art Sites for Students

I came across theses sites while I was looking for some resources that can be used with either a SMARTBoard or ActivBoard in the classroom. All of these are fun, creative, interactive sites for students to express themselves through art.


Destination Modern Art: This is a website that helps children ages 5 to 8 to learn about Art by participating in an interactive journey through New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Students will learn about the art works of MoMA by investigating the works of art, learning about artists, their techniques, and their inspirations. Students have the ability to participate in the online activities at school or at home.

NGA Kids: National Gallery of Art. A complete interactive site that allows students to create and learn about Art. Students are able to create their own artwork in the Faces & Places, Art Zone, Brushter, Photo Op, NGAkids Jungle, Collage Machine and Flow. The site also offers a Calendar of Events of exhibits, as well as interactive lessons for students from the NGAClassroom link.

Curious Corner: Art Institute of Chicago. A website designed for children and students ages 3 to 12 to help them to learn and understand the world of Art. Students will be able to investigate artworks from around the world and then be able to connect them to their own experiences through interactive activities.

Learn About Color: A website created by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to help children learn their colors. Students are asked to color in William the Elephant with the primary colors. In the site students are asked to mix the colors together to make as many new colors as they can.

These are just a handful of sites to help your students to learn the painters and sculptors of the worlds most famous artworks and to bolster their knowledge of what Art has done through out history. These websites can easily be used with your Interactive Whiteboards or stand alone computers in your classroom or computer labs with your students.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Document Cameras and the Smart Table

If you have a SMARTBoard you are able to have that Document Camera Image show up in the Notebook software so that you can annotate over top of the image on the screen.

Well you can do something similar to that with your younger students using the SMART Table.

With a document camera you will place the items below the lens, whether it is coins or money, shapes or any object that your students will need to identify. Once you have your items placed take a picture of them.

Once you have the image in a format that is compatible with your SMART Table, files with these extensions are common - .jpg, .png, .gif, you can upload it to the table into one of the activity options. One of the most common ones to use with images would be the Hot Spaces.


Once in Hot Spaces you will enter in a name in step 1 to create your activity. Step 2 will provide you the opportunity to insert an image directly on the screen or as a background. You will choose the background option. Browse to the saved image from your document camera and upload it to your Hot Spaces activity.


After you have set the background to the image, you can create your hot space locations and add the item labels that your students will move around to identify the objects, etc. from the background image.


Images provided by: Smart Table Toolkit Software