be Googley: April 2020

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Bonkers for Bitmojis

In this time of distance learning, it can be easy to become distracted. I have become absolutely obsessed with creating headers, agendas, digital stickers, and even video messages using personalized Bitmojis. I am not alone! So many educators have become bonkers for Bitmojis. The Bitmoji craze is spreading and it is coming to a Google app near you!

In today's blog, I am going to share some of the ways I have used Bitmojis, but be careful, you too might catch the "Bitmoji obsession."

Google Classroom Banners
I love to change up my headers and I have been doing so for a while, but my Google Classroom headers came to life when I started adding my personalized Bitmoji.

Google Classroom allows an educator to personalize their banner. To create mine, I used a Google Slide. Check out my tutorial to create your own personalized banner.

Creating Personalized Banners Tutorial.

You can create animated headers for your Google Classroom too. Animation can be fun and an animated header can really make your Google Classroom stand out. I made this one with a very hyper cat using the web application, https://talltweets.com/

Creating Animated Banners Tutorial

Sending Students Digital Stickers

As difficult as distance learning is on teachers, it is even more difficult for their students. Kids are social beings and forced isolation can take a toll. Personalized Bitmoji messages can brighten a kid's day. Everybody needs to hear that they are "Toad-ally" awesome once in a while!

Weekly Assignments and Agendas

I use agendas to help keep all of us on track. My agendas are just a Google slide with our "to-dos," but Bitmoji helped me to personalize and fancify them.

My personalized agendas often include my dogs Coco and Roxie. I use the application Remove.bg to remove the background from Bitmojis and photos. Watch my short tutorial below to see how.

Bitmoji Videos

Bitmojis are even awesome for video messages. I used the application Filmora to create this video almost entirely with Bitmojis.

Bitmoji Video Sample: You Are Awesome!

Now, I am going to share a secret that helped me to create with Bitmojis. It is a game-changer! Are you ready? Remove.bg, https://www.remove.bg This website allows you to upload pictures and remove the background AND even make some basic edits. You are going to love this tool! This tool is what I used to make my Bitmoji header, to add my dogs to my banner, and to create my Toad-ally awesome sticker. I have created a short tutorial below, but it is really, really easy to do.

Remove Background Tutorial

Oh yes! I know ideas are swimming in your head and you can't wait to create your own Bitmoji project. When you do, you too will become, bonkers for Bitmojis!

Friday, April 3, 2020

Going Digital With Interactive Notebooks

I used Interactive Notebooks for years in my classroom. I love the idea of Interactive Notebooks. I think it is vital to teach students to save important information as they are learning. I used Interactive Notebooks as a hands-on approach to notetaking, providing my students with a go-to place to house their learning. I use to call ours, "Our Scholar Book of Knowledge." Interactive Notebooks have many benefits, but after a while, I became frustrated with some of the aspects of routinely using them in the classroom. First, I grew to hate having students cut and glue things in their spiral notebooks. It took forever, and my room always looked like a herd of hampsters had overtaken it. Oh, the paper! The tiny bits of paper all over everything...

AND, the glue!! For goodness sakes, you would think that middle school students would have mastered this skill!

Even when no cutting or gluing was involved, our notebooks took time. They took time to find them, to write notes and to organize. I had other problems too. Students would lose them and there was no way to make up a semesters worth of notes. Even student absences were an issue. I would have to help them fill in their missing sections. I was ready to bail on the notebooks. I needed a change.

A coworker and I decided that we would go digital with our notebooks. We needed a platform and we decided to use Google Slides. Slides are great for presentations, but also make magnificent platforms for digital learning. I had already used slides for interactive lessons and digital scavenger hunts, but we decided to take digital learning with Google Slides to the NEXT LEVEL. Going Digital with my Interactive Notebooks has fundamentally changed my teaching.

I have used Interactive Digital Notebooks or IDNs in my classroom for 7 months now. The benefits of going digital with my notebooks will require more than a single post. It has been a remarkable experience. In future posts, I will provide practical advice for getting started, as well as tips I have learned along the way, but for now, let me share some of the benefits I found.

Going digital saves paper. I spend a lot less time at the copier AND I'm killing way fewer trees.
Students cannot lose Digital Notebooks! My students' notebooks are always safely located in their Google Drives.
Students can always access their notebooks. As long as my students have an internet connection, they can access their Digital Interactive Notebooks from anywhere. They can even access their notebooks on their phones!
If a student is absent, I can post my presentation notes on Google Classroom and catch them up, easy-peasy.
Because I share our notebooks with my students through Google Classroom, I can see their notebooks at any time, and anywhere. No more notebooks piled up on my desk waiting for me to grade.
Digital Notebooks are interactive in a way that paper notebooks can never be. I can provide students to links to websites and I can embed videos. I can have them write in notes or annotate a reading selection. They can compose a written response or they can simply interact with a slide by moving things around to demonstrate and/or build their learning. The possibilities are truly endless and I can't wait to share them!