Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Last week I worked with K-2 teachers in preparation of Read Across America Week teaching them how to use the Doink Green Screen App  with Dr. Seuss characters and book covers.  In the training I placed them into iconic Dr. Seuss book covers...much to their delight! We are using this concept for a Seuess themed family literacy night as well.  One question I repeatedly received was how I was able to mask the image on the cover. In all honesty I got the idea from an art teacher I follow on Twitter - Tricia Fuglestad . I have her blog bookmarked and I love all her ideas...particularly the ones related to green screening.  The difference between Tricia and me is that she is SUPER artistically talented and sadly I am not. She is also an iPad wiz and, while I have an iPad, I am more comfortable with a PC. So when I see her projects I am always thinking...how can I duplicate it on a PC? When she masks the covers of books she uses an iPad app c...

Picture Source If you have not heard of the app Novel Effect you may want to give it a try for Read Across America Week. The free app brings popular kid's books to life by playing sound effects, music, and character's voices as you read out loud. Novel Effect works when you read aloud from the corresponding book using voice recognition. I heard about the app while attending the TCEA conference in San Antonio earlier in the month. I was recently a guest reader in a fifth grade class and decided to give it a try. I downloaded the app to both my iPhone and iPad. I looked through the list of books in the Novel Effect library of soundscapes and found a corresponding book in our school's digital library (Overdrive). If I had a hard copy of the book it would have worked as well. I then practiced at home. I had the book  (Rosie Revere Engineer) open on my laptop and the Novel Effect app open on my iPad. I also tried reading the book from my Overdrive app on my iPad...

Tonight I am having fun making Bitmoji Valentines for an upcoming staff training that happens to fall on February 14th. I used the Bitmoji extension in Google Chrome and put it together in Google Drawings. I could insert a 2x4 table into Drawings to get my dimensions set for printing (I printed four to a piece of card stock). I used the Google add on "Magic Rainbow Unicorn" to make the word "magical" rainbow colored. The add on only works in Google Docs but I cut and paste my words into my Google Drawings.template. I bought the lollipops on Amazon but I am not sure I would recommend it. A lot of them were broken in the shipping process...which was packaged really poorly. I really wanted the twisty lollipops and couldn't think of any place in town that would sell them. There are several Bitmoji characters that would have worked for Valentine's Day cards. Here were my runner up ideas: If you plan on making Valentines for your staff or studen...

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! ...