Feeling Some Success with the Smart Slate

For the past few days, we've been using the Smart Slate quite a bit in Math class.  We are working on some "MEAP" type multiple-choice questions.  The students are working out the problems using pencil and paper, then entering their answers into our Renaissance Responders.  I am using the Smart Slate to remotely operate the Responder dashboard on my computer, which is displayed for classroom view.  It's great to be able to circulate around the room and not be tethered to the mouse on the computer in the front of the room.  Also, I am passing the Smart Slate to different students to demonstrate how they arrived at the answers to the math problems.  Some students are very eager to try it out, and some are almost afraid of it.  For the most part, they are very excited about the technology that we are using.  In addition, they are enjoying my moderate frustrations as I try to figure out the technology as well.  We've all gotten pretty good at switching from pen to eraser, turning to new pages or going back to previous pages, and the students have commented on how much better my handwriting has gotten!


I have spent some more time looking at resources as well, and was excited to find fraction tiles that are very similar to the real ones we use in class.  This makes it very easy to model fractions with the students, since I can demonstrate with the virtual set while they are using their own tiles at their tables.  I hope to add more virtual manipulatives, but I'm not real clear on how to save the ones I find on the Virtual Exchange.  When I downloaded the fraction tiles, it opened up as a Notebook page.  Will I just need to keep a folder filled with different Notebook pages, or is there a way to combine all the resources?  I noticed that there is an "Import" option--I will have to do a little more investigating!