SMARTboard’s spotlight tool

Did I mention that I teach in a hut? Well, that is what it’s called at my school. Even worse, most students and staff refer to my room as “the old hut” or “the brown hut”. I know, I know, it sounds pretty dreadful but inside… well, that’s another story.

Teaching in a hut (that’s “mobile classroom” to my senior leaders) has some perks but many disadvantages not the least of which are worries about security. Thus any ICT equipment that I use has to be returned to the school’s main building each night. Needless-to-say, fixing me up with an interactive whiteboard is out of the question.

Mind you, even if you are not fortunate enough to have an interactive whiteboard, SMARTech’s website permits the download of a bundle of very useful tools for teaching. These ‘SMARTtools’ include a very handy spotlight tool which you can see demonstrated in the picture below.

I use this tool (via laptop and data projector) when I want students to explore an image and not to be confused by its entirety. Here I am using the spotlight to examine a work by Hieronymus Bosch (The Temptation of St. Anthony). The spotlight darkens the complete screen with the exception of a small, moveable area. Using it, students can focus on a part of the image and then see how it connects to other areas.

Incidentally, I was using this painting to explore the darkest monsters of our imagining with Year 8 students. They had been reading a particularly good passage from Alan Garner’s novel, Elidor. They responded very well to the spotlight technique and I was able to direct their gaze to focus on the detail rather than the overall effect.

To download the latest version of SMARTtools including the spotlight, click here .

 

Try Matt Grainger’s fantastic tutorial too.

Find more videos like this on SMART Board Revolution

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