Books > Vol. 1 - Teacher productivity > Chapter 2 info

Simple Notetaking

This chapter explains how to open up SMART Notebook software, how to start doing simple note taking, and how to save your work as a PDF file.  Here is some content from this chapter...

Shown above are the major regions of Notebook software 9: Tools Area, Whiteboarding Area and Special Area.  The Tools and Special area can be moved to opposite sides of the screen.  Different versions of Notebook software have different tool icons and the Special area may look a little different, but usage concepts are very similar in every version of Notebook software.  The Special area includes the Page Sorter, Gallery and Attachment tabs.  In Notebook software 10 the tabs have icons instead of text and there is a fourth tab titled “Properties.”

To start writing notes, simply pick up a stylus from the pen tray and write in the Notebook software whiteboarding area.  You can insert a picture by clicking on the Insert pull down menu at the top of the screen.  To do this, select Picture File… (Insert -> Picture File…)  You can also click on the Gallery tab in the “special” area and either double click or click and drag a picture to the whiteboarding area.

Alternatively, you can use the Screen Capture tool shown in Chapter 1 and capture an image from any software program.

Above, we have just picked up the black stylus from the pen tray and written this addition problem.  At the top of the Notebook software file, we touched on the “Full Screen” icon (blue rectangle with four white arrows pointing to the outside corners) to go into the Full Screen mode.

Notebook software Full Screen Icon (on right side of toolbar)

Going into Notebook software’s Full Screen mode hides all the distractors, like the pull down menus, icons and Special navigation area.  This helps students focus on your lecture content.

The Full Screen mode also makes the images larger and easier for students at the back of the classroom to read.  The Navigational Toolbar pops up (on lower right) so you can go forward or back a page, access some other tools (three dots), or switch out of the full screen mode.

If you click on the “Go Forward” button (it is a icon of a page with the green right arrow) and you are at the last page, Notebook software will create a new page for your annotations.