For some, the month of May signifies that another school year is just about ready to wrap up. As educators and students alike look forward to what summer brings, this can be a challenging time to continue engaging students as their interests and motivations may be a bit more unfocused.
Need some inspiration to engage your students this month? Here is our collection of themed lesson content for May:
You may not realize it, but you might already have what is needed to engage your students in your arsenal of teacher tools. MimioStudio™ classroom software has many features and tools, allowing teachers a great opportunity to hook students. While presenting a lesson, you may find yourself needing to focus student attention on one area of your screen. Or, you may have various pieces of information that you want to show in stages. There are some great built-in presentation tools at the ready to help in your journey of mastering all things Mimio.
Two Tools, Limitless Possibilities
Along the same lines, the Spotlight tool will begin a circle spotlight area that can be moved around to focus on any area of your screen. By clicking outside the spotlight area and dragging with your stylus, you are able to move the spotlight to focus on any area. By clicking and dragging on the spotlight border, you can change the size of the shape. Once again, you have other options that you can change regarding the spotlight tool once you click on the options menu found on the top right of the spotlight screen. You’ll be able to change the transparency of the background shade, the size of the spotlight area, as well as choose between other spotlight shapes including star, square, rounded square, rectangle, and rounded rectangle.
There are many ways to use this fun tool to make simple lessons more engaging and interactive. As an example, a science teacher may have a website showing a periodic table image and ask students to come to the board and use the rectangle Spotlight tool to focus in on a metal or non-metal. A math teacher could use the rectangle Spotlight tool to focus on each step of a multi-step problem. A language arts teacher could display a reading passage and have students use the Spotlight tool to focus on main parts of the passage, or even use the Reveal tool to guide the reading of a selected area. Like most tools found in MimioStudio, the power of each is in how imaginative you can be. You can learn more about these tools in our upcoming “MimioStudio: Presenting Lessons” Quick Learn session, offered on May 14 at 7:00pm and May 30 at 8:00pm.
Easily Add Content to Your Lessons
This gem is found within the MimioStudio Toolbar and will be an option when you click the Insert Tool button. Once you select Screen Clipping, your screen will turn grey, giving you four options for how to clip at the top of your screen. You will be able to clip a rectangular, ellipse, or free-form drawing shape, or even screen clip the entire screen. Once you make your choice, you’ll then use your Mimio stylus or mouse to draw around the area you want to clip.
Once you pick up the stylus or release your mouse, the area will be clipped and automatically pasted into a MimioStudio Notebook page as a single graphic. You’ll then be able to manipulate the graphic, save it, or copy/paste into any other application you choose. I find myself using this tool to clip pieces of just about anything I find, such as important tables, graphics, and quotes, and add them to various presentations or documents I create for staff. If you haven’t used the Screen Clipping tool yet, it will be life changing! See how to use this tool in lessons and learn from other teachers in our upcoming “MimioStudio: Adding Content” Quick Learn session, offered on May 7 at 7:00pm and May 23 at 8:00pm.
Interested in checking out more of the Quick Learn sessions offered this month? Click here to view our complete list!