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...

I recently taught a class on how to use Bitmojis in the classroom to increase student engagement and help with classroom organization and management. One fun idea was to use them to make custom Google Classroom headers. The idea came from Alice Keeler's blog and she even provided a template for her header . My computer settings weren't the same as hers so I had to tweak my version. Template Link -  http://bit.ly/2RqtFFs This got me thinking about how the headers could be changed out frequently, as something new for students to look forward to, when they opened up Google Classroom. In my head I was thinking they could be changed out weekly (38 total headers needed) if time permitted.  Happy New Year Template Link Birthday Headers Template Link Valentines Day Template Link I have several other ideas, templates, and instructions linked in this presentation . I would love to see other custom Google Classroom Header ideas! ...

I posted a Google Drawings version of this activity and realized that it might not be feasible for everyone. It would be easy to change it to a low tech project. Have students draw out their goals using paper and pencil. They can use the "9" as either a "q" or a "g". I showed two different ways you can lay out the year in the pictures above.  Once they have a sketched out version give students clean paper and colored pencils to do the final copy. Finished versions could easily be hung in the hallway.  Our student HP Tablets come equipped with Microsoft Windows Ink Workspace, if you have that students could use it to digitize their sketch. We also have a Kami subscription but students could use the free version to digitally draw their goals as well.  I used these requirements when filling out my goals sheet: - List 2 things you would like to do (think about things that might make you a better student/person, healthier, or more or...

Looking for a fun back-to-school activity to kick off the New Year? Try this digital Google Drawings goals template . The idea is to take the numbers in 2019 and use them as both numbers AND letters to create four goals for the new year.  Students would identify: 2 things they would like to do, try, or read 0 ne thing they would like to accomplish or stop doing something they would like to 1 earn (personal or school) and someplace they would like to 9 o, get or give this coming year You may want to have students sketch out their ideas on scratch paper before they open up the template in Google Drawings. I had a couple of my friends try out the template and here is what they came up with: This is great activity to introduce students to some Google Drawing tools that could be used later in the year to create content posters. Layers of the Atmosphere Poster Google Drawings I made a video  explaining the project in gre...

This past summer I worked a reading program and I put together a week of creative bookmarks crafts for participants to complete. My favorite were these very easy Star Wars themed ones. I ran across them randomly from a library blog (which I am sad I did not bookmark to give credit 😢). The library site directed me to the YouTube Video  for instructions and the templates. The instructional video for these bookmarks is in Portuguese but since we were following what the child was doing versus what he was saying it was fine.  I downloaded the templates to my Google Drive so I could keep them even if the video or related site went down. Here are the links to each: Kylo Ren Chewbacca Yoda Princess Leia The were a lot of fun to put together. I thought they would make a good back-to-school activity, or project for a Star Wars themed school night, or to complete the week of May the 4th (as in May the 4th be with you...#scifinerd 🤣).  I wi...