Teri John
November 17, 2009
ED 377: FLC Smartboard Activity
Possible Objective for the Instructor:
Students will learn how to create a diagram of a particular atom/element by drawing its shells and the correct number
of electrons in it.
Overview/Background Information:
This activity is created for Fort Lewis College’s Chem. 123 lecture class. This class is focused on the basics of chemistry
therefore it is assumed that the students enrolled in the class have never taken a chem. Course before. I myself am
enrolled in this class and I find visual presentations as a vital contribution to my learning. This lecture class provides little
visual explanations for certain topics therefore I think that the Smartboard would be an interesting contribution in this
class. I felt that the professor could have used the smartboard in this class when we were discussing the module of
placing electrons into shells. This section was provided in the PowerPoint notes but there was no illustration to show
how electrons can be placed into shells and how it looks as a complete model. This part of the module was significantly
important because a student could name what the atom is by counting how many electrons there are within the shells
that surround the nucleus. In addition, students would also be able to recall what family or groups the atom is in if they
knew how many electrons are within a particular atom.
Possible Learning Activity:
The purpose of using the smartboard will hopefully increase student participation and provide feedback for the students
and the teacher. This activity is designed for students to become involved by drawing their own atom with the correct
number of electrons in the appropriate shells. Once students complete their illustration, they will most likely be able to
determine what the atom is and possibly name what family it is from as well.
Possible Anticipatory Set:
The professor will model the activity first by illustrating the atom known as Argon. She/he will first draw the nucleus and
surround it with the first shell layer. The first shell layer will have two electrons and then draw a surrounding layer with
another 8 electrons in it. For the final layer, there will be the remaining 8 electrons, because the element Potassium has
a total of 19 electrons. The instructor will also remind students that we draw a specific amount of electrons in each layer
according to the “Maximum # of electrons per shell in atoms” law provided below.
Shell #
1
2
3
4
5
Maximum # of Electrons per shell in atoms
2
8
8
32
50
Instructions for the Professor:
1. Access a computer to is compatible with the Smartboard
2. Using the remote, turn on the smartboard device and its monitor
3. Take note of the pen tray buttons, keyboard and erasers. These are the tools that you will be using with the
activity.
 NOTE: When you pick up one of the tools in the pen try, it assumes you want the tool you removed most
recently (pen, eraser, etc).
 NOTE: When you take a pen out of the try, it opens the Digital Ink Layer, which is like a clear
transparency over the screen that you can write on; so when you are done using a particular tool or pen
color, put it down and it will give you a menu to capture what you have written or drew.
4. To open Orientation, press the right mouse and keyboard button simultaneously until the red “x’s” appear.
5. Once you see the x’s, use a pen to touch the middle of the all x’s to activate your screen for usage.
6. Next open the Smartboard Notebook software program—you will use this program for the activity.
 NOTE: You will only need to use one or two different pens when drawing the nucleus and shells for the
electrons.
7. Use the Pens in the tray to draw your atom and the valence shells as well. This can be erased by clicking the back
button when you are ready to begin the actual activity.
8. When you begin the activity, first illustrate an example of how you draw electron shells in the correct format.
(Example, Potassium has 19 electrons but only a certain number of electrons can go into the layers of shells)
 Demonstrate the layers by drawing two electrons in the first layer, then 8 electrons in the second layer,
and the remaining 8 in the third layer.
 On the side of your drawing, draw a chart that describes the maximum # of electrons that can be put in
each shell of a particular atom (referring to the PowerPoint notes on the section of “shells”.
9. After modeling the instruction, have a couple of students try the activity but give them different atoms to try so
that they can see from different examples of how to draw shells and the correct number of electrons in it.
Example illustrations drawing of “potassium” with its shells:
Step 1: Draw nucleus
Step 2: Look at the given element, and determine how many electrons it has. (The number of electrons that a
particular element has can be known by looking at the elements atomic number. The atomic number is also the
number of electrons. Potassium has 19 electrons.
Innermost Shell
Second Shell
Step 3: Valence Shell