Using Screen Captures to Enhance Your Lessons

In my tutorials for this blog I take pictures of my screen or things on my screen to give visuals for the directions. For presentations in the classroom I often do the same thing so I can use the examples for my lessons. For example, when organizing math lessons, I might take a screen shot of an example from the online textbook and put it in my flipchart. That way I use the same steps the textbook uses without having to recreate it.

Like in this lesson:

So I could refer to the students' page in front of them and stay on my flipchart, I took a screen shot of the page and incorporated it into the chart.

Then I took a screen shot of the chart they would fill out and typed in my numbers over it.

I did the same thing to make a worksheet students used to do at their seats and turn it into an interactive lesson. (The worksheet was first scanned and turned into a PDF file.)

If you find yourself needing pictures of things on your screen, you can do this in several ways:

On a Mac: 

command + shift + 3 takes a shot of your entire screen and saves it to your desktop.

command + shift + 4 allows you to click and drag to highlight the area you want to take a picture of then saves to your desktop.

On a PC:

alt + print screen (on your keyboard) then open paint and paste (crtl + v). You can crop from there.

I find the PC process time consuming, so I like to download a free screen capture software. I have used Screen Hunter before. You just open the software and choose a full screen or to highlight part of it. This will also usually save to your desktop or wherever you decide to save them. 

Smart and Promethean both have screen capture abilities:

Smart:

On the top toolbar choose the camera icon:  

 Then you can take a picture of anything on your computer. The camera tool always stays on top so you can go to another screen

Promethean:
Go to Tools --> Camera, and choose your option.

Taking screen shots takes seconds and then the images are incorporated into your flipchart, notebook, Power Point, etc. in the same way any other image would be. 

ActivExpressions 2

If you have recently been introduced to the ActivExpressions 2 from Promethean, then this post is for you. Just like the original ActivExpressions you are able to use the devices for student question and answer sessions. You can have students select multiple choice or true/false answers or have them submit text answers. The 2s have a much sleeker design and a full QWERTY keyboard to make text answers much easier to type. Plus students have fun using new technology and seeing their answers get sent to the board. It's a great way to get all students to participate and interact with the board at the same time. The results give feedback to both students and teachers which can aid in future lessons. Use them before units to test prior knowledge, use them during lessons to see if students are understanding, or use them to close a unit in a self-paced assessment.

via http://www.prometheanplanet.com

Here are some things to know about ActivExpressions:

1. There are several types of questions you can ask from multiple choice, to text, to sorting and likert scales. 

2. You can create a flipchart with prepared questions, create a self-paced assessment, or use the Express Poll (located on your toolbar). 

3. You can choose to have students respond when registered in a class or anonymously. 

4. Use them with flipcharts you have made or downloaded from the Promethean website.

5. You are able to view results for each question in a variety of forms.

To begin using the ActivExpressions you will need to register them. The devices register through the ActivHub (included). You should only have to register the devices to your board one time. The hub is capable of registering multiple classes to the same board. Directions for registering are found on Promethean Planet Support here.  

The ActivTips page from Promethean Planet also has videos with step-by-step directions. Just search "ActivExpression". (I am unable to link to specific videos.)

Supporting flipcharts to download from Promethean with more instructions:

More than one correct text answer 

Prepared vs. Ad Hoc Questioning

Using the Question Master

Question Types