Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Every Valentine's Day I would see several teachers use the fun conversation heart candies to have students create friendly letters (example below) Source Link You can imagine the sadness that fell after Necco announced they would not be manufactured this year. In an attempt to help teachers go digital, and see the value in Google Drawings, I made a conversation heart friendly letter template . I made a sample letter to test it out, and in theory it should work (see first picture).  The ideas is that students would write the letter using a combination of text and conversations hearts I have provided (I made the body of the letter default to 3" spacing so the hearts could easily be placed within the context of the letter). Students could change the words around on the hearts if they needed to as well.  Once they were done they could use the clipart around the hearts to decorate their letter (all clipart is from Pixabay so it is labeled for reuse). Once

Friday is World Sketchnote Day (January 11th). I recently fell in love with Sketchnoting after attending Matt Miller's session at GaETC . Sketchnoting is a type of visual notetaking that allows people to better recall concepts and ideas. It combines structure, text, and pictures to convey thinking in a creative way. To be clear I am not an artist and my first attempt during the session, where we were given challenges to complete, wasn't very good. I am glad that we were told that it wasn't about the ART but about the IDEAS. In the session someone said I should find Wanda Terral , and see if she was doing a Sketchnote session. As it turned out she was sitting three rows ahead of me and she told me that I should check out Sylvia Duckworth's new book (which was coming out that week) about Sketchnotes.  Purchase Link I pre-ordered it and read it cover to cover over Thanksgiving break. It is a fabulous easy to read resource! I loved it so much

Our students go back to school from the holiday break this Monday (January 7th). I suspect that most teachers talk about setting goals throughout the year (MAP goals, reading goals, etc.) but coming back in the New Year is a great time to reiterate the importance of goal setting and talk about why we should do it. Teaching students now how to set goals helps them to develop a growth mindset and gives them skills they will need as they get jobs later in life.  For myself setting goals (big and small) helps me to stay focused as well as encourages continued learning. I can't image having a day, month, or year without some goals list! Some of my goals are annoying...like organize my closets and drawers and others are fun like try and match one pinned outfit a month. January's Pinned Outfit Match Goal Achieved When I was younger I made it a goal to be able to do a handstand. I practiced outside for HOURS until I could do it. My son wanted to learn a flip skateboard