hello and welcome my name is michael alfano i'm the instructional technology coach for the peekskill city school district and today we're going to be taking a look at some of the features built into our new promethean boards let's go ahead and get started so here we are on our windows desktop right on our promethean board and what we're going to do is first take a look at some of the apps that are built directly into the board meaning they don't require windows at all they don't require us being connected to the desktop at all although we can be when we are using them so we can start by pulling up the unified menu using any of these arrows along the edges of our board here or we can access this menu by clicking on the flame icon that's built directly into the board we're going to start by taking a look at the whiteboard app so here we are in the whiteboard app we have some simple tools on the left i'm going to do a quick run through of those right now first we have the pen tool we can click on the pen we can then choose the weight of that pen we can choose the color from the selected options and then we can write directly on the board underneath that we have a highlighter tool so again we click it once we see the colors adjust if we click the highlighter again we can change the thickness if we need to change the color and then we can go ahead and highlight anything on that board whether it's on text or off to the side if you're not happy with the colors that are built in there is a color palette here where you can choose from a wider variety of colors next up we have the partial eraser tool and this will allow us to erase only partially based on what we want to erase the next tool below that is the entire screen eraser so if we want to remove all annotations from the screen that next option is going to clear the entire screen if we happen to have done that by mistake there is an undo and a redo button at the bottom as well next up we have the math tools we can see we have a ruler a few different protractors and an angle tool here we'll take a quick look at the ruler so this ruler here we can move around with a single finger we can use two fingers to extend or shrink the ruler and even rotate that ruler as needed the ruler can also be used to actually make straight lines so if i take the pen tool i'm going to choose that thickness there we'll make a red line and if i draw right on top of this ruler you'll notice that i can use it as a straight edge and then when i remove the ruler i actually have a perfect straight edge i can then rotate the ruler i can make additional lines if i choose and once i'm done with my ruler the x in the middle will make the ruler go away we can then clear the screen again with that entire clear button right above the cursor icon we have an option to insert images what's nice is we do have some charts and templates that are already built into the boards so do take a look through here there are some great mapping options some tables charts etc so these are some great options we can click on the back button to return to the whiteboard next up we have the backgrounds where we can actually set the background to some lined paper for example we can set the background to some graph paper if we needed to and there are a few other options as well along with changing the background itself to some other shade if you choose just be careful not to be too fierce with that color it can get a little distracting but some of the lighter options are not too bad lastly we have the dual user mode so first take a note that all of our tools right now are on the left side of the board if we click on dual user mode we now see two identical copies of the tools at the bottom and we see a dotted line that is separating them through the middle what this allows for is two different users at the board to say that they want to write in different colors this person can be writing in blue while this person is writing in red and they can continue writing at the exact same time and they can not interfere with one another if one student decides to clear all of their annotations now note the difference in functionality the clear screen will only clear their half of the screen do note that as students are writing the dotted line is only a visual aid students can actually go back and forth over this line it is not an actual separator if we're done with dual user mode we can click on this icon to go back into single user mode notice the annotations will stay but we now have a unified menu at the left once again next we're going to look at two additional apps built right into the board we're going to find those by first opening the unified menu then clicking on locker here's where you can see more apps than just what's in the unified menu and what we're going to do is first take a look at the timer what this will do is bring up a floating timer that you can move around the board you can change the time in minutes in seconds and if you click on the preset for hour you can even bring it up to the hours you can add additional timers by clicking on the plus icon here at the bottom you can get additional timers up to four at one time and if you choose to go into full screen mode with the double arrows it will take all of your timers and put them into a full screen mode here's our fourth timer that's now maxed out and only in full screen mode can you now actually click on the pencil and rename your timers so you can actually name this anything that you'd like we'll just change that to 7. if we want to close one timer we can click on the x if we want to get out of full screen mode click on the double arrows and then we can click on the x next to each of the timers to get them going completely do note that when we have timers we can also click on where it says timer and we can access a clock or we can access a stopwatch next up we have the spinner also located in the locker spinners are very cool because we can actually save pre-made lists and then we can refer back to them anytime we need so for example you'll see here it says science period three this is a custom list that i've made myself to use the spinner we simply spin and we will now get a random choice generated by the computer in this case item 3. if we want to change the list we simply click on the drop down we can see there are a few pre-built lists we can scroll to see more and if you'd like to create your own list you can click where it says create new which will give you a screen to add a title add additional items down below and for each item you can choose the color get rid of it if you no longer need it and reorder them by dragging on those lines timers as well you can have up to four at one time and you can make them full screen as well to make them a little easier to see for your students next we're going to take a look at the window side of the computer so we're going to click on the input and change over to hdmi 2. so here we are on the windows side of the computer and one thing we might want to do is write on something that we have on the screen a really useful app for that again pulling up that unified menu is going to be the annotate app so we can go ahead and click on that app there and we'll see a small version of those same tools from the whiteboard now appear which we can move around the screen by dragging on this pink or red section at the bottom we have our highlighter and our pen just as we did before we can then write directly on the screen we can make note of anything we need to show students and we can change colors we can then switch to our highlighter and we can continue working in the same fashion one interesting tool that's unique to the annotate is this little eye icon here and what that allows you to do is hide or show your annotations if you need to undo a redo those options are still there and if you're completely done with annotations you can click on the x just keep in mind that when you click on it all of your annotations will go away as well the last thing we're going to look at are two buttons that are built right into the board we have the freeze screen icon and we have the no touch icon both seem to have similar functionality but there are distinct differences that i want to point out if we are looking at the freeze screen icon which is that snowflake if we click on that button we will see a snowflake icon up here which means that this screen is frozen so a great example of when to freeze your screen might be if students are coming into your class and you have a do now or an entrance activity on the board and you'd like to use that same computer to take attendance they can see the do now on the board you can see the attendance on the screen and only when you're ready to unfreeze that screen will you then return back to normal do keep in mind though when the screen is frozen if we touch the board it is still accepting input from us so for example if i click on where it says go to classroom even though right now we don't see anything the board still accepted that input once we unfreeze the screen we'll notice that it did accept that input so the next button is going to be used to change that functionality so the next button is going to be the no touch button when we click it we will see this icon here now if we touch on the screen nothing is going to actually be received by the board as input you'll notice the cursor blinking showing that the screen is still live and active but nothing that i do touching the board is going to have any effect it's only when i push that button again that now if i click on a different button will the board then respond to that input those are some of the basics of the promethean board we will be doing more training throughout the year but i wanted to make sure that you've got some of the basics in a video so that you can go ahead and rewind and re-watch and make sure that you're starting to get some use out of these great boards hope you have a great day thanks so much for watching