Rapid Technologies have been at the forefront of promoting SMART Technology solutions for just over 12 years now and SMART Notebook (the software bundled free with educational SMARTBoards) has gone through a lot of changes in that time, benefiting both teachers and students alike. Smart recently previewed at BETT 2012 the latest version (v.11) of Notebook to great reviews. Well, the long wait is over and SMART Notebook 11 is here!
So what’s new in SMART Notebook 11? Well the toolbar has been greatly improved and now the brand new SMART Notebook 11 features an embedded web browser that can be inserted onto a live Notebook page allowing users to bring web content directly into a Notebook file. The tools in Notebook can then be used to write or draw over web pages and images can be dragged and dropped directly into a lesson.
“Is that it?” I hear you say “What else is new?” Well we took a look under the hood and these are some of the additional great benefits.
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Activity Builder – This tool can be used to create activities where selected objects can react to actions by either accepting or rejecting other objects
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Adaptive toolbar – choose an action from the toolbar and the relevant options attached to that action will appear
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Crayon – authentic crayon added to the pen options
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Customized creative pen - Build your own creative pen using any image
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Audio recording – Record sounds directly into a SMART Notebook lesson
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Shape image fill – Fill any irregular fully enclosed shape
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Reset page - Use this feature to return a page to its last saved state
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New gestures – Shake objects to group and ungroup them
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Updated tables – Scale, move and interact with tables more easily
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New text engine – Provides improved text formatting and consistency within SMART Notebook
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Fade ink – Fade any regular ink
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Page sort – use the page sorter tab to jump to any page or drag and drop to put them in any order
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Rotate and move objects – use the handles to resize or rotate, or select and drag around a page
And that’s just for starters if you have recently invested (or considering investing) in the fantastic SmartBoard 800 there are additional features for instance.
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4 user freestyle interaction – Allows up to four users to perform different tasks at the same time anywhere on the interactive whiteboard or display surface
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Touch gestures – Accepts common multitouch gestures for two users currently recognized in Microsoft Windows 7 and Mac Snow Leopard, including one- and two-finger gestures such as pinching, zooming and tossing
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Object awareness – Distinguishes automatically between fingers, pens or other objects, recognizing the tool choices of up to four users
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Locking pen mode – Locks the SMART Board interactive whiteboard in pen mode, so students can write and draw with a finger, pen or other object
There is also a handy tutorial in the help section that will take you through all the new features! Its worth noting too that SMART Notebook 3D Tools is now available for Mac users (but sadly Smart Notebook Maths Tools is still only available for Windows versions)
“So how do I get my hands on a copy?” I hear you say, well you can
Download SMART Notebook 11 now. Rapid will be offering refresher courses on Smart Notebook to bring your teaching staff on the these great benefits. If this is of interest do not hesitate to contact our sales team free on 0800 195 0938.