I use Smartboard software a lot in all the work do. It is a fantastic way to pull together all of the resources you need for a lesson into one place and brings a multimedia approach seamlessly into lessons. If anyone would like to share ideas on this page I would be very grateful. In the meantime I'm going to try and post various ones of my own together with examples.
This first one is an idea to get pupils to read and understand short sentences in the perfect tense. It can be used as a whole class presentation idea of for working in small teams within a circle of activities. You can adapt the idea for many different topics.
It exploits the fact that you can 'hide' text written in one colour against the same background colour on the slide. When you then move a coloured shape over the tex, in this case the spyglass,it reveals it.
Step by Step:
1) Write each word of the sentence in a separate text box in the default black ink. Scatter each box around the screen.
2) Drag the mouse over all of the text boxes to select them. Click on the properties arrow of any one text box at the top right corner of the text box.
3) Scroll down to select 'properties' at the bottom of the drop down list
4) Change the ink colour to that of the slide background colour - usually white unless you have changed to another background colour.
5) it is a good idea at this stage to 'lock' the text boxes in place using the Ctrl and K keys on a Windows platform or the apple and L keys on a Mac
6) The text should now have disappeared against the background
7) Draw a shape. I use a circle to imitate a magnifying glass to fit in with the spy theme but any will do.
8) Select the shape you have drawn and repeat the steps above to go to the properties function and change the fill colour to anything dark.
9) Now as you move the shape around the screen you should reveal the hidden white text. The kids think this is great fun and you can set them a timed challenge to decode say, 5 different messages hidden on different screens.
10) If you can't see the text it may be that you have to click on your revealer shape and change the order so that it is at the back of the objects on the screen. It will then reveal words in front of it.
You can download my example Download Agent-secret-3 and adapt it for your own purposes. Give me some feedback if you use it and find it helpful.
Amusez-vous bien!
