Rebecca Nevetral

Script and Task Analysis for Screencast

Software Program: ActivInspire (Basic Functions)

Task Analysis Script ScreenIntroduction Hello Everyone! It’s Ms.

Nevetral. Today I’m going to teach you a little bit more about a software program I’ve noticed some of us are struggling with, ActivInspire. It’s on your desktop and if you just double-click it, we can open it and get started. While it opens, ActivInspire is a great tool to use in your classroom to have ease of set-up between classes and to even help with classroom management. The more you have your flipchart set-up for your class, the better you can manage your class.

Finding ActivInspire icon and opening the program

ActivInspire Dashboard: explanation of ActivInspire Dashboard purpose and closing it

So today I’m just going to go over some of the basic features with you. First thing that pops up is the ActivInspire Dashboard. You really don’t need this for anything, it just offers you the same tools that are in your toolbar up here on your top left. So, I am just going to go ahead and close out of this.

Opening screen of program - ActivInspire Dashboard

Closing ActivInspire Dashboard

Quick Access Toolbox: Explanation of tools available through the Quick Access Toolbox

And because we only have a limited amount of time today, I’m going to talk to you about some of the more basic features of the program.

Right here, we have tools to change pages. I’ve noticed many of us are creating single page flipcharts because we’re not really sure what we’re

Mouse hovering over various tools in Quick Access Toolbox.

Hovering over page change tools.

doing. These allow us to change pages, just like adding a new slide in a PowerPoint.

Down here we have some color choices to use with our pen and our highlighter, and maybe even sometimes with our shape and fill tools.

Here we have some size recommendations for our pen, highlighter, and shape. And here are some alternate settings we can use with the slider tool.

Down here we have our mouse pointer. This is probably the one you’re most familiar with; this is what your regular mouse looks like.

Here is where we can find tools, a pen, a highlighter, an eraser, a fill tool, shape, and text. Those are the ones we’re really going to focus on today. As you notice, if you hover over them, it will tell you what the tools are, but let’s go ahead and get started with this text tool because typing is what most people use their flipchart for, at least initially.

Hovering over color options.

Hovering over pre-selected size buttons.Hovering over slider tool to change size.

Hovering over the mouse pointer.

Hovering briefly over the tools, pen, highlighter, eraser, fill, shape, and text tool buttons as they are listed.

Typing: Using the text tool to type in flipchart

So as you can see up here, when I click the “T,” I have all these different text options that show up: font, size, increasing/decreasing size, bold, italics, underline, superscript, subscript, color, and then some of the more

Clicking “T” (text) tool. Explaining the various text options available while hovering over each of the available buttons.

basic features that you see in a Word document. I’m not going to go through all of those will you.

We’re just going to go ahead and type something here. I’m just going to say “Hello all, welcome to our tutorial.” And as you can see, that typed it in blue, however maybe I want to type something in black to get students’ attention later.

Just click up here and change the color to black.

This allows me to draw attention to certain text items.

Typing “Hello all, welcome to our tutorial.”

Clicking font color tools to get color choices and pick black. *Font color change*

Typing “This allows me to draw attention to certain text items.”

Resizing Textbox: Using the sizing options to resize a textbox to fit on flipchart

As you can see over here, not all of my text is on my flipchart. In order to get it all on my flipchart, I’m going to come over here and select the mouse tool, I’m going to select my text, and I’m just going to use the resizing tools over here to get my flipchart to fit on my page. So you can just resize it.

Hovering over textbox not inside flipchart. Selecting mouse pointer and clicking on textbox.

Resizing textbox using sizing buttons.

Writing with Pen: Using the pen to write in flipchart

Once you have that, you can have students write definitions up here, you can have them answer problems, you can have them write their own problems. If you’re doing math like me, you might have them write 5+3=8. And you’ll have to forgive me, the pen tool is definitely easier to use in person on your ActivBoard, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we are just going to

Selecting pen, resizing pen, writing “5 + 3 = 8”

stick to this screen.Erasing: Using the eraser to erase writing on flipchart

In order to erase that, we are just going to click the eraser, and erase it.

Selecting eraser, erasing writing done with the pen

Page Change: Changing pages to create a multi-page flipchart

If you need to create multiple pages, you can use this page turner tool over here.

Clicking “Next Page” button to add a page to the flipchart

Creating a Shape: Creating one of the various shapes offered through the “Shape” tool

And you might want to create a new shape over there. So let’s go to our shapes, and we’re going to click the square.

We are just going to use the settings that are already there and we are going to create a square.

Clicking on the “Shape” button.

Adding a square to the flipchart by clicking and dragging the square tool.

Highlighting: Using the highlighter

Perhaps I want to highlight the corners of that square so that students know what I’m talking about when I say corners. I can go in and highlight those.

Clicking the “Highlight” tool. Highlighting the corners of the square

Closing This is really just a start of some of the basic features, but I wanted to go ahead and give you those so that you can start playing on your own. I hope you find this tutorial helpful and I cannot wait to make some more for you. See you soon.

Last page of flipchart