Technology in the Classroom: activinspire

A lot of hits on this blog come from people looking for ways to use the magic eraser in ActivInspire. The Magic eraser is called Magic Ink in ActivInspire and is the eraser in ActivStudio. Regardless of the name, it is one of my favorite tools for wowing and engaging students. The magic pen reveals images or text hidden underneath other graphics. I have used magic erasers to reveal names of states on a map, definitions of words for vocabulary review, labels on a diagram, and more.

Prometheanplanet makes using magic eraser a breeze. Download the magic eraser resource. The resource offers ready-made images that have the magic eraser build into them. The resource pack offers many images such as a magnifying glass, glasses, binoculars, and many more fun graphics.

Layering is the key to using the magic eraser. The image with magic eraser needs to be on the top. The image that covers what you want to reveal goes on the top layer just below the magic eraser. Revealing an item requires placement of that image on the middle layer. I would also recommend that you lock the magic eraser if you plan on moving items into the magic eraser like the example below.

Creating magic eraser tools from scratch is a snap with Activinspire. The Object Browser makes it easy to see the layers that objects are located. You can quickly move objects from one layer to the next. No more guess work like in Activstudio.

The best way to improve your skills with magic eraser is to dissect flipcharts containing magic erasers. There are many on Prometheanplanet. Have fun with the magic erasers.

One of the biggest influences for change in my teaching is the interactive white board. We have 2 different brands in our building. I was one of the fortunate ones to be trained in how to use both. I liked the Promethean Activboard. I have been using Activstudio and Activprimary all school year. I favor the Activstudio and even my second grade students can with move easily through the tools and activities.

Recently Promethean has released a beta version of their next upgrade; ActivInspire. I love that Promethean works to continuously update their products. I read the prometheanplanet forum regularly and have seen many of the requested changes addressed in the Inspire software.

I thought I might walk you through some of the changes and encourage you to try the program yourself.

ActivStudio V3

ActivInspire

The first change that I see and like is the size of the images in the library. It is much easier to see exactly what the image is and you can now read the labels.

The next change was having many browsers to help you quickly build a flippage. The library is not just a library anymore. You can use the browser to help you do a variety of tasks that would take many clicks through menus, but now only takes one or two clicks.

The browser helps with pages, layers, teacher

notes, properties, actions, and voters.

The two browsers that I have found most helpful have been the layer browser and the property browser. These to browsers alone have saved me hours of time and most likely a case of Carpal Tunnel.

The facts that all the pieces that you need to work with are right there for you to see. I no longer need to click through four or five steps to get an object the way I want it. The layering browser has helped me get objects in to the correct layer so that tools like the Magic Ink will work correctly. Before I was always guessing and

hoping that I had the object in the correct layer.

One more plus to the Inspire software is that you can control what tools are available on the objects. You could not do this with v3. It is great to be able to put your most used icons on the screen. My younger students feel very empowered when they do not need my help to change the look of an object.

I also like how the actions turn on and off. You can click an object with a hide action and it disappears. You click the object again and it reappears. I also like how you can now move an object with an action. This saves a lot of time when you are creating a flipchart.

I have found a few things that I do not like very much.

The first change that I noticed that I did not like was that the library no longer has icons showing the different types of images. My younger students relied on the icons to find the files that they wanted to use. The library in Inspire is just the files and word labels. This makes finding a picture much more difficult for young students. There is also no search for items in the library. Both the students and I like to use the search mode to find just the right picture to go with concept we are trying to share.

Another problem is the teaser Promethean has put in this version of software. The duel pen function is shown. The problem is that it will not work. To use the duel pen function you will need special pens and special filmware to get it to work. I am pretty sure that my district will not spend any more money for my classroom when so many other teachers are still using overhead projectors.

I use actions a lot in my flipcharts. I have had a hard time finding many of my favorite actions. Several of the actions’ names have changed a little. I was eventually able to find what I needed. I do like the alphabetical order of the actions. I have been frustrated with one particular action. When I want to use the action “another page” I have to guess what page I want. I would like to be able to see a picture of the pages just like we can see pictures of the object, groups, and text.

I have been going back and forth between both V3 and Inspire. I do not like that anything I save in Inspire will not work in V3. I worry that come March I will have flipcharts that will not work because the demo will run out and the new version will not be made available as a free upgrade. I hope this will not be the case. I would like to use Inspire full time. Of course, I would like some of the glitches worked out.

As you can tell from this very long post I have turned into an active geek in a very short period of time. My students are benefiting from my love of the new technology and are eager to do the activities that I have created or downloaded from Prometheanplanet. They are also starting to create their own flip charts.

You can get your chance to try out ActivInspire by going to http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.16615
I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.