The Rockingham County (Virginia) Public Schools site provides teachers with resources for most major content areas. One link in the sixth grade section enables teachers to download a ready-made Smart Board file on the Revolutionary War. This file begins by introducing the key historical figures of the era and also includes a game that requires students to drag the original thirteen colonies into place on a map. A brief assessment page at the end of the file asks students key questions such as which battle ended the Revolutionary War. Using this notebook file as an example, students could create their own game and activity pages as projects to demonstrate their learning.
Another approach to Revolutionary War projects on the Smart Board is to help students use the flash-based games that are a standard part of the Smart Notebook software. These games allow for higher levels of interactivity and feedback. The Smart Exchange website has a Revolutionary War notebook example that demonstrates the use of several flash games. Teachers who play these games with their class can afterward assign students to adapt the flash games to other Revolutionary War content to demonstrate mastery of the material. This type of project is appropriate for students in sixth grade and above.
The many excellent educational videos available on the Revolutionary War provide teachers with other options for Smart Board Projects. Teachers should first show a film using the Smart Board, and then ask students to generate questions and activities based on the video. An example of this approach can be found in the Notebook file "Revolutionary War on Wednesday," which presents activities related to an episode of the Horrible Histories series. Students are more enthusiastic about videos when students know an activity will follow and that those activities will be used by the whole class. This type of project is appropriate for students in third grade and above as at its most simple level, it only requires the ability to write questions and answers.
An activity appropriate for high school students is making videos about a specific aspect of the Revolutionary War. For example, students might choose to focus on the causes of the war, the historical importance of key battles such as Lexington or Yorktown, or the leading commanders in the Continental and British Armies.
These video projects are ideal for display on the Smart Board using the Smart Video Player which allows students to stop the video by picking up a pen. Students can annotate the videos interactively as the class watches the video. Photostory, available free from Microsoft, is a program that provides a simple interface for the production of computer videos. Other resources needed to complete this project include Revolutionary War images, which students can easily obtain from Google Images, and a headset or microphone for recording audio.