Monday, April 26, 2010

Resources In Promethean Planet


If you are an ActivBoard/ActivInspire user, you probably know about Promethean Planet. If you don’t, be sure to go to http://www.prometheanplanet.com/index.php?20100426071600 and register to become a member. There is a wealth of information for you on this site. In this blog, I am going to talk about some of the resources. When you place your mouse on the word “resources”, a number of links will be displayed right below it. Lessons are flipcharts created by teachers and submitted to Promethean Planet. I submitted a flipchart in June of 2009 and it has been used by 116 teachers from around the world. You might consider submitting a flipchart yourself one day. One of the important things about using someone’s flipchart is to give them credit. Undoubtedly, you will also want to edit the flipchart. You might only want to use 6 out 10 pages in the flipchart for example. So you will need to know how to delete pages, create your own pages and edit the pages you use. Another type of resource you can search for is a resource pack. This is not a flipchart and it will not automatically open in ActivInspire. A resources pack must be downloaded to a place of your choosing. You will then need to choose “import” and “resource pack to shared resources” from the “file” menu to add this resource to your Resource Browser. “Magic Erasers” is a good resource pack to download because it provides you with pages, images and revealer tools that you can use in your flipcharts. By the way, it places the magic eraser resources under “lesson building tools” in the Resource Browser. The third type of resource I want to discuss in this blog are the web links. When you click the radio button for web links and do not specify the subject or grade level, you will be given a choice of 868 web links to select from. Of course you always have the option to narrow your search by choosing a grade level and subject from the drop down. The web links provided are wonderful places to use with your students. There are games, activities and information that you can use in class. These are websites used and submitted by teachers. They are not created or maintained by Promethean. One of the sites for example is a Discovery Channel website that allows you to view information and animations about types of volcanoes, plate boundaries and the location of active volcanoes.You can even build your own volcano and watch it explode. Kids love that kind of stuff!


I hope you explore Promethean Planet and use these amazing resources with your students. There is much more information in Promethean Planet that I did not mention in this blog, so go to the site, register, explore and enjoy!

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