The SMART Notebook Toolbar

Inside each SMART Notebook lesson file is a top toolbar full of tools that teachers can employ. This toolbar can be customized, making our favorite tools easily accessible, and putting away the ones we don’t use regularly. This blog lists our 7 favorite tools (and a bonus!) – but first, here’s how you can customize your toolbar.

How to Customize the Toolbar

First, click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner. The resulting window shows all of the tools that are already displayed in the toolbar, as well as some additional ones you can add. Next, simply drag away the icons that you don’t use regularly, and drag the ones you do want to the top toolbar on the left side. They will now be there to stay.

Here’s Our Top 7 Tools (and a bonus!):

1. Clear Ink

This tool erases all of the ink on your page at once. Use this to wipe out your writing and start again from a blank page with another class.

2. Clear Page

This handy little tool erases and deletes everything on your page: images, text, ink, shapes, etc. – not just the ink.

3. Screen Capture

The Screen Capture tool turns on the camera so you can go to any source and capture an image for your lesson pages. Think about capturing not just pictures, but diagrams, text blocks, and graphics.

4. SMART Recorder

When you want to create a tutorial video of things happening on your lesson page, use the SMART Recorder tool. You have the choice of capturing the whole page as a video, or choosing a smaller capture area for your movie. This feature includes sound capture, so the built-in microphone records your voice as you talk over the ink and text tools you are using while also showing the movements of your lesson shapes and objects. Give it a try!

5. SMART Document Camera

If you have a SMART document camera wired into your setup, this icon turns on your doc cam image and embeds the window in your lesson page. With this tool, you don’t have to manually switch inputs from computer to doc cam.

6. Reset Page

This is a nice tool if you have changed your lesson content by writing, adding text, or moving objects around. If you need to put the page back in its original form, tap the Reset Page icon. This will return the page to its state before you last saved it.

7. SMART Keyboard

For those of you who don’t want to go back to your computer to type, use this tool to call up the floating keyboard to input text. A nice time saver!

*BONUS* SMART Exchange