Playing with Smartboard and a few questions

So I've been thinking about using the Smartboard with the math curriculum. In my McGraw Hill Mathematics Second Grade teacher's manual it lists several technology tools for McGraw Hill Mathematics. I've now found two of the four listed. I stopped in to school and found two CD roms that I had never used before: McGraw Hill Mathematics: Math Tool Chest and McGraw Hill Mathematics: Math Traveler. Math Tool Chest has some great manipulatives that I think will be quite helpful for those of us at the primary level. I'd like to find the other technology resources. I can't ask my learning coordinator for a few more weeks if we have the other tools, but I thought maybe some of you had them and had used them. So, has anyone used the Test Generator or the Resource Manager? It looks like the Resource manager has files (pdf?) of the Practice, Reteach, and Enrich sheets which we could then combine with the Smartboard to fill out as a class without having to scan in the paper copies of the sheets or find a document camera.

I have also had fun looking at Smartboard lessons online and the Lesson Activity Toolkit. If you haven't downloaded it, I recommend it. http://www.education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/Lesson+resources/toolkit/default.htm
The interactive/multimedia tools are very cool. Many of them include a way to check for correct answers for a given activity. This leads me to my next question: have any of last year's Global Learners used the Smartboard for a center activity? I'm thinking a small group of students might be able to do some activities on the Smartboard (and check for correct answers) while I work with another group of students. Naturally this would only happen after the students were comfortable using the Smartboard and the proper expectations and routines were set up.

Okay, two more thoughts before I finish. I am so pleased to have learned about RSS at about the same time I really started following some blogs regularly. It is so much easier using Google Reader (or whatever RSS you use) to check for any new posts than to visit a bunch of different blogs. I have also used it on a few Craigslist searches and for some newsletters I used to get through email but now I get as RSS and have eliminated a few more incoming emails to my mailbox. Last, I recently learned about tinyURL.com. I'm sure many of you know about it, but maybe not all. Anyone can take a really long web address and paste it into tinyURL and get a shortcut to a much smaller address that I can then share with people more easily. For example, here is a link to the Lesson Activity Toolkit from above. http://tinyurl.com/6xx9bw Obviously, this could be quite useful for using with our students.
Hope you are enjoying the end of the summer.
Lisa

web site worth checking out

http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/index.lasso

Hi all. Hope your summer is relaxing yet productive. Here is a website that I think is beneficial to all of us. I don't recall any global learner(s) referencing it...
Anyway, if you have the time then check it out.
Peace, Doug