Welcome everyone,
This is the home of my Learning Project for EDTC 300!
If you’re anything like me, you may struggle heavily with indecision.
Let me tell you how this process all started …
On the second day of class, Dr. Hildebrandt told us we could learn to do ANYTHING we want.
Immediately, my mind went wild with ideas! I thought about … starting a podcast, learning guitar (round 2), learning to teach yoga, speaking a new language, upgrading my cooking skills, taking up photography (seriously this time), I even googled things like “what should I learn to do?”
I then realized that most of my ideas are all things I’ve already tried or am still doing, just not too seriously! That got me thinking, what else could I do that would still be fun, require a bit more commitment, and help me in the future as a teacher?
I got thinking about the article we read for class called; “5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence will Replace Your Resume in 10 years,” I realized that the sooner I learn to use the online tools that will work to my advantage, the better off I will be in the workplace and more confident I will feel in my capabilities for the job. Rather than having a boring old resume, I could learn to create a digital one, while also making my lesson plans a lot more exciting and interactive for the students than a boring old PowerPoint I create from scratch.
This is when I landed on a completely new idea … CANVA. If you are unfamiliar with Canva, it’s an “online design and visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.” Although I had briefly explored it here and there, I knew it had potential to be an amazing resource for me and therefore, my students in the future.
Once I began diving in a bit deeper, I realized that in the interesting of saving time – it’s sort of like a treasure chest for teachers!
The first video I watched was made by a teacher (Michelle Emerson) – Her YouTube channel is called Pocketful of Primary. She showed me exactly how to access the materials that have already been created from other educators, the templates you will need for specific lesson plans, (i.e. multiplication) and how to customize them by changing the colours, fonts, theme, elements, adding/deleting slides and more!
She also talked about the different ways you can present and how to use the toolbar:
- You can either use the full screen present mode or select “presenter view” if using a video platform like Zoom.
- When presenting in full screen, I learned that the toolbar at the bottom allows you to zoom in or out on your slide so you can enlarge the pictures as needed
- She also shows how to use the “magic shortcut” at the bottom which contains a list of different keys you can hit in order to create effects like confetti, drumrolls, a curtain, mic drop, and other effects that can help keep your students engaged and interested!
- She also shows how to insert a timer by simply selecting the number key equal to the number of minutes you want the timer for.
- It also allows customization for number of seconds
- Next to the shortcuts, there is an interactive Q & A option
- Your students can scan the QR Code or use canva.live with a code and insert their questions into a chat format
- She also shows how to control the slides using your phone or another device that you can use more easily.
This upcoming week, I am going to dive deeper into more design techniques and hacks for teachers that can help me start creating some lesson plans for practice I will be making in other classes!
