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Content Creation

Discover tools, tips, and strategies for content creation in education. Explore ideas to design engaging and effective materials for learning.

How to Generate Images and Art with AI

by Dr. Bruce Ellis June 27, 2023

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

We’ve all heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. And when we are communicating with each other, pictures do help add depth and meaning to our words. They help our audience better grasp the message and retain it longer. Granted, in order for images to be effective, we need to be sure to pick images that are relevant and support the message. Also, representation matters, and using images that reflect your audience’s demographics and characteristics helps your audience better relate to your message. Before we explore a few tools to help you generate images that are tailored to your message, let’s review a few pitfalls that we want to avoid.

Common Mistakes When Using Images

If we aren’t intentional or thoughtful, we can actually undermine our message and lessen the impact that it has on our audience. This is also true for students who haven’t been taught how to carefully choose images and how to avoid common mistakes in the process. Here are a few common mistakes to be aware of when you are selecting (or generating) images to use.

Using irrelevant images: Using images that are not relevant to your message can be confusing and distract from your message.
Using low-quality images: Using low-quality, blurry, or pixelated images can make your communication look unprofessional and may detract from your message.
Using images that are too large or too small: Using images that are not appropriately sized for the medium you are using can make them difficult to see and may not have the desired impact.
Overusing images: While images can be a powerful tool in communication, it’s important not to overuse them. Too many images can be overwhelming and may distract from your message.
Relying too heavily on images: Images should be used to support and enhance your message, not to replace it. Make sure you are still conveying your message clearly through text or other means, and not relying solely on images to communicate.

How to Find Images

Before we begin generating images, let’s see if those images already exist and are available. If they are, then we can save time, energy and effort. Here are a few blog posts that you may find useful as you search for images to use.

Nonlinguistic Representation: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words by Diana Benner
Free Content, Templates, and Images with Freepik by Emily Horn
Openverse: An Open Source Creative Commons Search Tool by Miguel Guhlin

If you still weren’t able to find the perfect image, then let’s consider having AI generate the images for us.

While it seems that there is a growing list of AI tools that generate images, let’s narrow it down to ones that are good for us to use and good (appropriate) for students to use. Remember that the quality of your image is going to be heavily influenced by the words you use to describe the image in your prompt. Identifying a style for your image can also help create images that are better suited for your audience.

AI Tools for Generating Images for Teachers

These tools may be free or freemium and require a login. For these two reasons, they are not suited for students to use but may be a perfect fit for teachers who are looking to AI to generate images.

Canva’s Text to Image

If you have a Canva for Education account, you are able to use the Text to Image app. Write a description of the image you want, choose the style, then let Canva do the rest. Canva will create four images to choose from. If you do not like any of the images, consider tweaking the prompt you used and trying again. Be sure to add the images to a project (even if you don’t plan to use them right now) so that you can access them in the future. Once you regenerate images or close out the tool, any unused images are no longer available.

Starry.ai

Create an account with this freemium generative art tool and begin producing amazing images. To stay within the free portion of the tool, you will want to redeem the five daily credits made available to you. Choose the style, give a brief description, and begin generating. Each set of four images will cost you one credit. You can view previous creations in the My Creations section.

NightCafe

This tool is very similar to Starry.ai though you have more options in regard to trained AI models and styles. Each set of four images will cost you one credit unless you use the SDXL Beta (which I’m very impressed with) which costs three credits. You can view previous creations in the My Creations section.

GetImg.ai

Another powerful but easy-to-learn generative art tool! Creating a free account will give you 100 credits each month to use when creating images. With more than 25 trained models you may find that there are too many choices that impact the style of your image. Generating four images at a time will cost you four credits.

AI Tools for Generating Images for Students

These generative tools are free and do not require a login, making them a more suitable choice for students to use. As students create amazing images, be sure to ask them to cite the tool used to generate the image as well as the prompt they use. This will help you and other students replicate the quality images though for different projects.

Craiyon

Craiyon (no, that is not misspelled) is a pretty impressive tool. Enter your description and choose one of four styles. You are able to identify negative words which is Craiyon’s way of avoiding certain items in your image (such as people, the sun, etc.). Give it about a minute and it will generate nine images for you!

Prodia

Though you can create an account, it isn’t necessary to use this tool. You can click on the Examples button to generate one of the six presets, or you can enter your description, choose the model from the dropdown, and generate an image. Only one image is created each time.

Background.lol

Generate amazing cover images and wallpapers with this free tool. If you aren’t sure what to create, then click on one of the green sample prompts and then click the pink Generate Cover button. After generating the image a popup screen will appear with the option to download the image.

Using Images in Projects

If you are having students create projects in which they are allowed to use generative art tools, consider having students cite their work by:

identifying the name of the tool they used
including their prompt
noting the style they used to generate the image

This will allow you and your students to replicate similar images and learn from each other as you look to improve communication by providing relevant and impactful images.

So, how will you be using images to support your message? Do you have a repository site such as Pixabay that you use or are you already making use of generative art tools to provide custom images? Drop a note in the comments section and let us know.

June 27, 2023 0 comments

Content Creation Educational Research

Micro-Reflections: Crafting Reflections in the Moment

by Miguel Guhlin June 1, 2023

written by Miguel Guhlin

How do you reflect on your daily work? Reflection can be a bit daunting. After a long day’s work, you may stagger home, plop on the couch, and pass out. You know reflecting on your day is important, but waiting until the day’s end is too hard.

What Are the Benefits of Reflection?

Reflecting on what you do, what you learn, or what you fail to do or learn, remains critical. The benefits of reflection include:

Engaging in a thoughtful relationship with life
Becoming active and awakening to one’s lived experiences
Gaining insights from asking oneself tough questions, resulting in a more active rather than a passive, non-reflective state

What’s more, reflective practice allows teachers to:

Move from experiencing a lesson to understanding what happened and why
Challenge the underlying principles and beliefs that define the way that you work
Adapt in a quicker manner to sudden change
Improve the way you learn and do work
Be authentic and honest about growth, success, and failure

Some suggest that the process of education is about cultivating a reflective practice. You could adapt Mark Twain’s famous quote about reading to reflect in this way:

“An educated person who does not reflect has no advantage over the person who lacks an education yet engages in daily reflection.”

Self-Judgment and Reflection

Research indicates that when students do a few specific things, they can speed up growth. John Hattie refers to Self-Judgment and Reflection as having an effect size of 0.75. This is a bit better than Reciprocal Teaching (d=0.74).

The Visible Learning MetaX database describes this introspective strategy in this way:

Self-judgement is a critical component of independent, self- directed learning. Students can often over- or underestimate their own capabilities. Teachers should cultivate in students the ability to apply standards to their own work. Researchers have pressed the importance of a student’s ability to do the following: 1) reflect on her work; 2) discern its relationship to established standards, and 3) make self-judgements.

Two strategies anyone can use include cultivating metacognition and devising short quizzes. That is, thinking about thinking and quizzing yourself about what you’ve learned.

What Are Micro-Reflections?

As I get older, I’m always on the lookout to reflect along the way. This is a far better approach than waiting until the end of the day. I call these reflections about experiences along the way “micro-reflections.” How do you engage in micro-reflections?

To assist in developing micro-reflections, I carry a small notebook with me. In it, I will share what I’ve learned and what my first impressions and beliefs are about it. Let’s take a look at one approach to reflecting.

Get a copy of all images shown via Google Slides. Inspired by The Actiope Model. Learn more online.

Adopt a Process

This process below starts with you. It is always about you when you are reflecting. You learn how to own your actions, and what actions are not yours. In the end, you can only change yourself and learn from others, whether they intended to teach or not. You can get started reflecting with this one-pager. Let’s walk through each part together.

Inventory Beliefs, Emotions, and Biases

Once I encounter new information or knowledge, I interrupt my reaction. I ask myself how I see that reaction affected by my own emotional state and biases. This helps me inventory my biases, a critical first reaction to new knowledge or ideas. This is valuable because I’m often irritated when encountering an idea because it often runs contrary to what I already know. My goal is to shed the irritation and focus on the new idea to understand it better.

Impact on Actions

Then, I write down what the impact of that knowledge or idea might be on my space or my sphere of influence.

Impact on the World

This penultimate step is tough, because it requires me to ask what am I prepared to do to change the world. Some days, I’m not prepared, or I’m only prepared to do something small – like write a blog entry or chat with a colleague.

Wrapping It Up

This is the tough part, and it may be a few hours or days before I come back to do this. Making up a quiz about what you’ve learned can help you remember it. Make up the quiz when the information is fresh, then let it sit for a day or two. When you take the multiple choice quiz later, it will help you retrieve the information in your head.

Using the Reflection Heuristic

The idea behind this reflection heuristic is simple. It’s essentially a formula for reflecting. After a while, it gets easier to do because you do it every day. With micro-reflections, you get to go through the process several times a day.

People ask me, “How do you write about so much?” My answer is that I take a look at the notes I write first, then follow this process to share one thing I have learned. In a short time, you can amass a lot of ideas, write a reflection, and then a week or month later, reflect on your original reflection. This makes it fun to discover, “How have I grown (or not) relevant to this piece of information that was wonderful enough to write down?”

Give it a try.

June 1, 2023 0 comments

Content Creation ESL/ELL

Two Canva Tools That Will Amaze You

by Emily Horn May 23, 2023

written by Emily Horn

It’s no secret that I absolutely love Canva. I’m grateful that Canva offers educators and qualifying nonprofits free accounts! If you fall into one of these two categories, consider getting signed up and applying for one. You won’t regret it. I use Canva every single day and take full advantage of the plethora of rich customizable templates, design elements, graphics, photos, and more it offers. It makes my work life better! Canva has recently gifted us with a few solid-gold additions. Let’s take a look at two of my favorites.

Magic Design

This tool is a total game changer. Simply upload your media, or choose from media you’ve already uploaded, and see what layout this new Open AI-powered design tool generates for you. You can choose a design that’s produced as-is and go straight to editing. Or you can choose from several styles and colors, and add your own headlines to see how your changes transform the designs. Once you choose a design, you will have total editing capabilities. But this gives you a great start! To experiment with this tool, be sure you’re logged into your Canva for Education account, and click Try Magic Design under Templates.

Step 1: Upload media or use media you’ve already uploaded.

Image of Canva Magic Design Upload Media Box

Step 2: Choose a vibe or theme!

Image of Image of Canva's Magic Design Choose a Vibe Box

Step 3: Add a headline, if you prefer.

Image of Canva Magic Design Add a Headline Box

Step 4: Click your preferred design and customize the template.

Image of Canva Magic Design Customize Template Box

The Translate App

If you have a design or create a design in Canva, you can now easily translate it. That means, for our English Language Learners, you can provide presentations, worksheets, visual tools, and more in students’ native language! Eliminate the language barrier so that students can learn content and skills on pace with their peers, demonstrating their true capabilities. You can also translate different pages into different languages! I’m going to take a pre-made, editable template available in Canva for addition strategies and show you how to quickly and easily translate it.

Step 1: Open up the design you want to translate in Canva.

Image of Canva Addition Strategies Worksheet

Step 2: In the left menu, click on Apps and search “translate.”

Step 3: Click on the Translate app in the results to add it to your menu items.

Step 4: Select your “Translate to” language, and click translate.

Canva Translated Addition Strategies in French

If you like these tools, check out a few more that Canva introduced this spring! You won’t be disappointed. Let us know how you like them in the comments!

May 23, 2023 2 comments

Blended Learning Classroom Management Content Creation

The Benefits of Using Interactive Videos in the Classroom

by Lucia Soto May 4, 2023

written by Lucia Soto

Don’t you wish you could multiply yourself in the classroom? Interactive video is more than showing a YouTube in class! This teaching strategy can be used at all levels and in different ways to build independence, free yourself up for teacher-led small group instruction, and give students the opportunity to learn at their own pace.

Research on Interactive Video

Interactive video currently has an effect size of .58. This means that it has the potential to have a positive effect on student achievement. The VisibleLearningMetaX website defines Interactive Video as:

“A digital video technology that allows students to review segments of a recording in a non-linear way, as many times as they wish. Interactive video has been linked to reduced cognitive overload, greater attention, and greater reflection.”

All things that we want to afford for our learners! Think about how many times you have watched a video to learn something new or get a refresher on a topic. Being able to visually see and understand something allows for clarity and a deeper understanding. Personally, I use YouTube to learn more about new technology and to learn new recipes while cooking. More on that later!

A Reinforcement, Not a Replacement

“I’ve never had to repeat directions to students,” said no teacher, staff member, or central office personnel EVER! When creating an activity in the classroom, consider how you can utilize interactive video to enhance your instruction and essentially multiply yourself for your students. Weston Kieschnick says in his book, “Bold School: Old School Technologies + New School Technologies,” that:

“to enhance the effectiveness of this strategy, it should come after teacher-delivered core instruction.”

I understand this as “don’t let interactive video replace you, instead, let it reinforce what you have already taught to your learners.” Interactive video allows you to “interact” with multiple learners at the same time and in different locations, but it is not a replacement for your instruction.

An Example of Interactive Video

When working with 2nd graders on an author study project, the teacher I was coaching utilized interactive video. Using video, she provided directions for one part of the project that included project expectations. She also recorded a brief re-teach of her mini-lesson for another part of the project, including the same visuals she used in her whole group lesson. Throughout this project, her understanding and use of interactive video in her classroom grew. Each student could clearly see the teacher’s expectations and could re-watch videos as needed without interrupting the teacher. The teacher was then able to facilitate the learning, helping any students who were struggling or needed more scaffolding, while others continued to learn from her through video.

Image of student watching a video during the author study project. — Student watching a video during the author study project.

Image of two students working together to complete part of the author study. — Students working together to complete part of the author study.

Boost Independence During Small Groups

When interactive video is implemented in the classroom, it increases the chances that students can learn something while away from the teacher. If a station rotation model or playlist model is implemented in the classroom, especially with elementary students, there are many times when students are required to be on task while away from the teacher.

In these models, the teacher is usually working with a few students in small groups on a specific skill or providing intervention. We know this small group instruction is where the powerful teaching moments happen. But oftentimes, this is the exact moment when the students who are not working with the teacher, decide that they can not function independently, and they HAVE to ask the teacher a question about what they are supposed to be doing independently.

Image showing an example of interactive videos during independent work — Students working independently during small group rotations.

With interactive video, or even video directions, included in station tasks, students are less likely to disrupt the teacher and small group instruction. They can also revisit instructions if needed. In other words, how can you maximize your small group time, and they can maximize their time on task.

Tools for Creating Videos for Stations

One tip for providing interactive video or video directions is to utilize Flip. With this platform, teachers can record task directions, generate a QR code for the video (on the site itself), then print the QR code and include it at the station/ task.

For those that have a Learning Management System (LMS), maximize what you already have access to! Use folders to organize the station tasks and record the videos directly in your LMS. This is a quick way to organize and house videos that students can refer back to.

Offer Self-Paced Learning

In addition to boosting independence, incorporating videos leads to empowering students to learn at their own pace. Providing interactive video for students to watch and then respond to, or offering videos with directions, allows students to pause, play, rewatch, and/or digest content at a pace that works for them.

Students working independently at their own pace.

If a student needs to take a bathroom break, they won’t miss the important content when it is in a video format. For example, I am no expert chef in the kitchen! When I am learning how to cook a new recipe, I turn to good old YouTube. With video directions on YouTube, I can understand measurements, pause and rewind to seek clarity on a step, and rewatch to see what my meal should look like.

Prevent Frustration

When delivering professional development, I love to use this Fold the Cheese clip from Schitt’s Creek. This is about the frustration you feel when you don’t fully understand something. And then someone else is getting upset with you because you don’t understand. Let’s avoid having students go through this frustration!

As a teaching strategy, interactive video works best when leveraged to enhance instruction. This consumption of materials is best maximized when the video is created by the teacher who students have the privilege to learn from every day. How will you implement interactive videos to boost independence, offer self-paced learning, and prevent frustration?

Lucia Soto is one of our 2023 Elementary Technology Conference (ETC) presenters! Don’t miss her session with Gilbert Barrera on “A Balanced Approach to Building Independence While Leveraging SeeSaw.”

ETC is coming in hot this June 11-13 in Galveston, TX. But don’t worry, it’s the coolest conference around. If you work in any role in elementary education, there’s something for you at ETC this summer. Don’t miss it!

Register now!

May 4, 2023 3 comments

Content Creation Digital Citizenship Digital Literacy English Language Arts Reading (ELAR)Writing

What You Need to Know About Copyright

by Renee Bogacz April 21, 2023

written by Renee Bogacz

Most people don’t find themselves breathless with excitement at the prospect of learning about copyright. If you were to play a word association game with the term copyright, you would likely get responses such as boring, confusing, unnecessary, or annoying. While those emotions might be legitimate, the truth is, understanding copyright is a necessary evil for both teachers and students. Let’s break it down into the most useful pieces of information.

What is copyright?

The most basic way to explain copyright is this: It’s a law that protects people who create by giving them the right to control who can use their creations and how. The following are protected by copyright:

Books
Stories
Articles
Blog Posts
Song Lyrics
Musical Composition
Works Of Art
Photographs
Video Recordings
Audio Recordings

Essentially, if it is highly creative, it’s protected by copyright law.

How do you know something is copyrighted?

A common misconception is that a copyright symbol must be present to show that a work is copyrighted; actually, once a work takes tangible form, it’s covered by copyright. So if you scribble a poem on a cocktail napkin, it’s copyrighted. Every picture you take with your phone is copyrighted. You don’t need the symbol, and you don’t need to officially register your work to have copyright law apply.

How can you use a copyrighted work?

Copyright law can be pretty unforgiving. To use a copyrighted work, you would have to determine who the copyright holder is and get permission to use the work. That can be time-consuming or even close to impossible. The internet makes it more confusing because it looks like everything is freely available to use. It can be really difficult to track down a copyright holder online because so many things, especially images, get shared over and over again. So if you’re about ready to give up ever using anything copyrighted ever again, don’t fret! There are a couple of things that make it much easier for educators to work easily within copyright law!

Fair Use

One nice option is Fair Use. While not an official part of copyright law, it still allows copyrighted works to be used for some very specific purposes – one of which is education. Now, that doesn’t mean you can run to the copy machine and make copies of a novel for your students instead of buying them! Fair Use says that copyrighted works can be used for educational purposes if used in small amounts (as opposed to in entirety) and if the impact doesn’t harm the market for that item. Since Fair Use isn’t officially part of copyright law, there aren’t any hard and fast guidelines for using works and calling it Fair Use. That makes some people nervous because they just don’t know when they may have crossed a line and used too much work or used it inappropriately.

Creative Commons

Luckily, there is another option that can be useful in the educational setting. That’s Creative Commons. This does work within existing copyright law, so it can be much clearer to understand what can and cannot be done with a copyrighted work. Creative Commons licenses were developed to give copyright holders clearly communicated control over certain aspects of their work, ranging from fairly lax requirements to pretty stringent. Creative Commons licenses indicate the following things:

Attribution: all licenses require you to give credit to the original creator of the work; this also allows you to adapt, remix, and build upon someone else’s work.
ShareAlike: this indicates that you are allowed to adapt, remix, and build upon another person’s work and then share your creation using the same licensing the original creator used.
NoDerivs: this allows you to use someone else’s work but you can’t adapt it.
NonCommercial: this allows you to adapt, remix, and build upon someone else’s work, but you can’t do it commercially.

There are actually six different Creative Commons licenses, using different combinations of the above elements. The least restrictive would be Attribution (do what you want, just give credit); the most restrictive would be Attribution-NonCommericial-NoDerivs (share someone’s work only as it is, non-commercially, and with credit given).

Teaching Students About Copyright

Because teachers and students alike use copyrighted materials daily for education, it’s important to have a basic understanding of what copyright is and how to work within it. Here is an excellent resource from the Learning Technology Center of Illinois that serves as a great guide for educators when it comes to Fair Use and Copyright.

For the younger learners, simply teaching them that anything they didn’t create on their own belongs to someone else and having them share where they found it will be sufficient. As students get older, however, they should learn the nuances of copyright, become familiar with Fair Use and Creative Commons, and learn ways to formally document their use of any copyrighted materials in school projects.

Copyright violations become increasingly severe as kids get older and become adults. Anything from a failing score on an assignment or a failed course to disciplinary measures like expulsion could happen to a student, depending on the severity of the violation and the student’s age. As an adult, it could cost someone his or her job or even result in fines or jail time. That’s why starting early instruction on copyright is so important.

If you’ve decided that copyright is fascinating, welcome to my world! If you’ve decided that copyright is fascinating, welcome to my world! Here are a few great resources for you to keep the learning going!

Copyright information from the U.S. Copyright Office
Fair Use information from the U.S. Copyright Office
Creative Commons licenses
Blog post from Learning Technology Center of Illinois written specifically for educators

Kids Can Care About Copyright, Too! Think kids can’t understand copyright? Think again! Learn how to break down copyright so it’s easy to understand, and discover tools your students can use to respect copyright!

April 21, 2023 0 comments

Adobe Artificial Intelligence Communication Content Creation

Adobe Firefly’s Text-to-Image and Text Effects Models

by Dr. Bruce Ellis April 18, 2023

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

If you are creative, you may already have access to Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has tons of tools to help you communicate visually and effectively. If you find that Photoshop is a little too much, either due to the learning curve or price, then you might consider using Adobe Firefly.

What Is Adobe Firefly?

Adobe Firefly is currently in beta, and I’d highly recommend you join. Firefly is Adobe’s AI art-generative tool that creates text-to-image photos and text effects that will amaze you. You’ll be able to easily create photos that rival Starry.ai and Midjourney but without the cost or daily token updates. Unlike other creative AI generative models, Adobe Firefly can be considered “ethically trained” since it was trained on Adobe stock photos, openly licensed images, and public domain content where the copyright has expired. Adobe says users of various Adobe products (Photoshop, Express, etc.) will soon have the model to use within these tools. Adobe hasn’t announced if Firefly will move to a monetized strategy or not.

Adobe Firefly Text-to-Image Creation

Once you log in to Adobe Firefly, click on the blue Generate button in the Text to Image section. This will bring up a new page where you can enter your text into the input area near the lower portion of your window. If you aren’t sure of what to enter as the prompt, mouse over images in the gallery to see what was used to generate each specific image. As you mouse over the gallery photo, you can click on Try Prompt and use it as your own. For this first example, I entered “polar bear with sunglasses drinking lemonade” and clicked Generate. A short moment later, I had four images created for me by Firefly along with a few editing options and style choices. Play with the various settings to see which work best for the image you are wanting.

Adobe Firefly Text Effects

While the Text-to-Image feature is cool, I think you are really going to enjoy the Text Effects feature. Enter your text of choice and then enter your prompt to describe the image. The effect fills it in, generating the word using the default text style, though you can choose a different font as well as a few different styles. For this example, I used the word “calm” and “colorful butterflies.”

butterfly letters spelling the word calm

Implementation Ideas

Yes, this can be a fun tool to play with, but how can you use it in your teaching? Sure you can create images and decorate words for bulletin boards and communications, but how can you use it with students? Here are just a couple of ideas to consider. Can you think of more?

Ask students to suggest prompts for academic vocabulary.
At the beginning of the school year, customize your classroom using students’ names and prompts they write to describe themselves…or using the school mascot, which would definitely simplify the task.
Create memes or custom letters for information from lessons, important reminders, acronyms, or visual cues with your students.

Sample Smorgasbord

How will you make use of Adobe Firefly? Will you be creating items to enhance newsletters or will it be for instructional purposes such as flashcards, instructional posters, etc.? Drop a comment below to let us know. Feel free to tweet out a sample of your creation – be sure to share your Firefly prompt and use the hashtag #TCEA.

April 18, 2023 0 comments

Content Creation Good Teaching

A Collection of Choice Board Examples and Templates

by Emily Horn January 30, 2023

written by Emily Horn

Dr. Robert J. Marzano states that self-agency is an essential outcome for students. The two elements making up student self-agency are voice and choice. He defines agency as students having “the belief that they can positively affect their lives and possess the skills to do so.” While voice and choice are two different elements, they are often connected. Marzano describes choice boards as one way to build self-agency by offering choice in social, environmental, and learning domains.

Four Ways to Offer Choice

In his book, “The Highly Engaged Classroom,” Dr. Robert J. Marzano outlines four ways we can offer choice to students: (1) choice of tasks, (2) choice of reporting formats, (3) choice of learning goals, and (4) choice of behaviors (pp. 14, 101). Choice boards can be used for each of these! In his blog, he says,

“Choices of task, reporting format, or learning goal allow students to take control of their learning and make decisions that ensure personal interest in their assignments.”
Source

In other words, choices boost engagement and motivation, which lead to more learning! With this in mind, let’s look at a few articles with templates, examples, and steps for creating your own choice boards.

How to Create Choice Boards

How to Create a Choice Board: Using a choice board to allow students to select their own journey while still ensuring they reach their destination is a powerful research-based strategy. Explore John Hattie’s mindset on choice and get five steps for making a choice board.

Choice Board Templates and Examples for Your Students

Choice Boards for Elementary Learners: Take your elementary classroom to the next level with these choice board examples and templates. Your students will thank you! Snag ready-made choice boards or use the templates to create your own. Either way, you’ll be ready to get the choice board party started.

Wakelet Choice Boards: Wish you had an easy-to-access and accessibility-friendly choice board maker? You do! It’s called Wakelet. Learn how to make choice boards the easy way. Check out three example activities, an example Wakelet choice board, and discover the benefits of using Wakelet to offer choice and voice in your classroom.

Templates and Ideas for Differentiated Choice Boards: Check out four ideas for differentiation with choice boards. Then, explore a wide variety of editable templates and examples you can follow. This article definitely has some gems to help students work on their level while still offering them options to choose from.

Choice Boards for Active Learning in Math: Choice boards are a powerful tool to use in any subject, and that includes math! Uncover math-specific templates for all grade levels that include checks for understanding, vocabulary, assessment, infographic creation, multiplication, division, geometry, pre-algebra, and more.

Create Interactive Learning with a Choice Board: Innovative teachers empower students through the use of the choice board, either in paper or digital format. Find digital examples and templates for ELA, history, math, science, and differentiation. You’ll have everything you need to create digital, interactive choice boards for your students in no time.

Have you used choice boards already? Are you planning to start? Share your experience and any additional resources in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

January 30, 2023 0 comments

Canva Content Creation Educational Research

80 Graphic Organizer Templates for Active Learning

by Ernest Gonzales January 23, 2023

written by Ernest Gonzales

If you are a reader like me, you can read a few pages of a book, pause for a second, and come to the realization that you can’t remember what you just read. Maybe you’re driving somewhere, and for a split second, you forget where you are driving. These types of experiences can happen easily because we are not actively thinking. The same thing happens to learners in our classrooms. In order to avoid these situations and seek deeper learning experiences for students that help them retain information, active learning instructional strategies can be utilized.

What Is Active Learning?

Active learning is a term used to refer to instructional strategies focused on getting learners to actively process new information such as through reflection, collaboration, writing, and more. Through active learning experiences, learners can retain more information than through passive learning experiences, such as note-taking. So it is important that educators implement active learning instructional strategies to improve learning outcomes. For those wanting to learn more about active learning, visit Cornell’s Center for Teaching Innovation.

Using Graphic Organizers for Active Learning (GOAL)

graphic organizer categories to promote active learning

One easy way to incorporate more active learning strategies is through the use of graphic organizers. In order to make it easier for educators to find and use these resources, I designed a series of 80 “GOALs” or “Graphic Organizers for Active Learning”. These GOALs are free, ready-to-use, and designed as dual-language resources. For districts such as ours in San Antonio, with 20% emergent bilinguals, it is crucial to have resources that are available in English and Spanish. The graphic organizer templates are organized into different themes such as problem solving, collaboration, SEL, writing, and more to simplify the process of finding the exact template you need for lessons. The templates are designed with fun graphics and are meant to be engaging to your audiences.

The Graphic Organizer Templates

Here is a menu of eight categories of graphic organizers. Each category contains 10 different designs to choose from. The designs are created in Canva, an amazing design tool that is offering free services to K-12 schools. When you click on one of the designs, you’ll notice an option to use the template in Canva, meaning you can customize the template to fit exactly what you need, or you can use it as-is. Be sure to create a Canva account if you don’t already have one or talk to your district’s IT department about setting up access for your entire district.

Graphic Organizer Formats

When ready, you can print the graphic organizer for your students as a PDF file, or you can use these files with the ed tech tools of your choice. Since the GOALs are designed in Canva, you can download a PNG or a JPG file in order to place the graphic organizer into popular tools such as Kami, Lumio, Seesaw, or Canvas. For those educators ready to app smash these templates into ed tech tools, here is a guide with short video tutorials to help you get started.

exit ticket graphic organizers to promote active learning

As educators, the instructional strategies we implement should seek to make learning more effective. Active learning can do this for our students, but it helps to have the resources we need to get started. It’s an added bonus if the resources are free, too! Make active learning a “GOAL” in 2023 by downloading these templates today.

January 23, 2023 4 comments

Content Creation Digital Literacy Online Tools and Apps

How to Use Canva’s Text to Image Feature

by Dr. Bruce Ellis December 23, 2022

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Canva is a platform that allows users to easily create visually stunning images using artificial intelligence. One of its standout features is the artificial intelligence (AI) text to image function that was recently deployed. This feature allows users to input a block of text and generate an image based on its contents. This can be super useful if you are looking for content-specific images but coming up empty handed.

One of the biggest benefits of the AI text to image feature is that is highly customizable. The more detailed your request, the better it can create photos to match what you might want. But this tool isn’t perfect, so be prepared to tweak your input text and try again. And, as the AI improves, you can expect fewer cases of having to tweak your text in the future. Also, you can reach your image quota for the day, though no specific information can be found as to how many requests you can make before this happens. As their servers and processing power scales, you may find that this is no longer a limitation of using their tool.

Five Steps for Using Canva’s Text to Image Tool

Open Canva, and start a new project.
The first time you use Canva’s text to image tool, you will need to scroll down on the left-hand menu to locate it in the Apps directory.
As shown below, you will need to describe the image you’re looking for as best you can in the text box.
Next, scroll through the styles to select the one you are interested in, or you can just leave it as “Surprise me.”
When you are ready for Canva to generate four options for you to consider, click the “Generate image” button. To use an image, just click it or click and drag it to the stage area. You can then use the image as you would with any other graphic!

Screenshot of Canva's text-to-image tool — Screenshot by author

Four Best Practices to Optimize Image Output

When using Canva’s AI text to image feature, there are a few best practices to keep in mind in order to maximize its impact.

1. Carefully plan the content of your text.

The AI algorithms in Canva will use the words in your text to generate the image, so it’s essential to choose your words wisely. Make sure that your text clearly conveys your intended message and uses language that will be easily understood by your audience. If the images aren’t created as you intended, consider how you can tweak your text input and try again. You may need to be more specific or more generic in your input.

2. Consider the context in which your image will be used and choose a style that fits.

In Canva, you can choose from several options: Surprise me (which will create a variety of styles from your input), Photo, Drawing, 3D, Painting, Pattern, and Concept art (associated icons shown below in order).

Screenshot of Canva's image style options — Screenshot by author

3. Keep your audience in mind when using the AI text to image feature.

Think about what your audience is looking for and tailor your images to meet their needs and preferences. That may mean you have to tweak the wording to include specific objects, colors, locations, surroundings, people, feelings/emotions, etc.

4. You cannot go back to previously generated images, so add images you think you may use to the stage area.

This will allow you to also compare images from several tries. Then, you can just delete the ones from the stage that you choose not to use. Additionally, you can add each image to a separate page so you can go back to them at a later date. Doing this will allow you to save each image individually when you save the file as a JPG or PNG file.

Examples of AI-Generated Images in Canva

Canva offers several ideas to prime the pump in case you aren’t sure what to try first. They include:

A panda riding a bike through a city with a depth of field
A light watercolor painting of koi fish in a pond
A photo of a magical forest city from the future

For the following images, I chose the Surprise me style. Above each set of photos is the text I used to generate the images.

“Settlers traveling across Texas plains in covered wagons during winter“

Various images created by author in Canva

“Phileas Fogg Rides an Elephant as led by a young Parsee guide into the jungle” (in reference to chapter 11 of Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne)

“A scientist mixing chemicals from two different flasks. Smoke rising up from one flask. Liquids are red and blue.”

Be sure to visit and bookmark Canva’s Free AI Online Image Generator page to stay up with the latest info on this fabulous tool. You can also find more exciting news and info by following Cana on Twitter at @Canva!

What will you create with Canva’s new AI text to image tool? How will you use it to support vocabulary and language acquisition, comprehension, critical thinking, and other skills that benefit from having visual supports?

If you don’t already have one, I encourage you to sign up for a free Canva for Education account.

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December 23, 2022 0 comments

Explore wonderful winter-themed classroom activities for all ages

Content Creation English Language Arts Reading (ELAR)Good Teaching Math Science STEM/STEAM

Wonderful Winter-Themed Activities for All Ages

by Emily Horn December 5, 2022

written by Emily Horn

It’s that time of year. You know it all too well – the time just after Thanksgiving when everyone has had a taste of time off and is just itching for winter break. I feel antsy for it. Do you? How about your students? It’s not an easy time of year to keep everyone engaged, but here are several resources with winter activities for many different grade levels. You’ll find everything from English Language Arts and Google activities to Science, STEM, and more. Ready to find some good stuff? Let’s go!

40 of the Coolest Winter Science Experiments and Activities

Study snowflakes, grow the Grinch’s heart, make candy can slime, create an igloo and so much more with WeAreTeachers’ 40 fantastically fun wintery science experiments. Experiments for every age are offered, and these will work great at home or at school! I like these experiments because they reinforce core concepts and/or encourage creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking. Take a gander and try some out! If you’re a high school teacher in a K-12 school or near an elementary school, see if your students could lead some of these experiments for elementary students.

Winter Activities Middle School Students Will Love

Here you’ll find 25 activities on everything from probability to poetry, and they’re all geared toward middle school students. Among my favorites include poinsettia PH paper, a gumdrop structure challenge, a hot cocoa experiment, and probability with dreidels. There’s a lot here, and hopefully there’s something of interest for you and your students to try out!

Winter Read Aloud (Free Digital Winter Reading Activity)

This snow-themed reading activity on “The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder” by Jennifer Findley is best suited for grades 4 and 5. She includes free tasks cards for the story along with an answer sheet. Also, if you don’t have the book, she has a YouTube read aloud for you! The lesson focuses on questioning and includes “engaging and interesting topics like avalanches, snowboarding, ice fishing, extreme winter sports, snow globes, and more!” Sounds like something your students will love, right?

Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids

This blog post is from 2017, so some features within Google have probably changed, but I just LOVE these activities from Control Alt Achieve. Each one is linked to a blog tutorial with step-by-step instructions for you and your students. Some of the activities include video tutorials as well. In this article, you’ll get links to the following:

Build a Snowman with Google Slides
Decorate a Holiday Tree with Google Slides
Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings
Holiday Greeting Cards with Google Drawings
“12 Days of Christmas” Guided Google Sheets Math Activity
Pixel Art Ornaments with Google Sheets
Wintertime Emoji Rebus Stories with Google Docs
Holiday Lights Writing with Google Docs

Five Winter Themed and Fun Holiday Classroom Activities

These activities do require you to sign up for a free Nearpod account if you’ve not already signed up with Nearpod. This article provides you with winter themes for your presentations, a virtual drag-and-drop snowman building activity, gamified winter activities, lessons on various holidays celebrated in winter, and some winter-ific core subject lessons. You’ll want to check these out! There is something for every grade level.

Winter Speaking Activity for Spanish Class

Students love “Guess Who,” and it’s a great way to reinforce vocabulary and get in some oral language practice as well. This free download from Srta Spanish will help you do just that with Spanish language learners. You do have to input your email address to recieve the download via email. You get a printable and a digital version which are both bilingual English/Spanish.

I hope you find something useful in these activities that will spark some winter fun no matter where you live, or what the weather’s like. If you try any of these out, let us know how it goes in the comments. Happy holidays!

Additional Winter Activity Resources from TechNotes

Two Brand New Winter Breakouts and Bonus Puzzle
STEAM Powered Winter Activities
Fun with a Holiday FlipHunt
Winter Resources for Elementary
Magical STEAM Project
Celebrate Season Holiday Websites
Holiday Website, Apps, and Extensions
Five Holiday Seesaw Activities
Merry Merry Breakout
Augment Your Holiday with These iOS Apps
Making It Mery (Animated GIFs)
Tips Tricks Tech Tidbits: Holiday Resources, REBUS

December 5, 2022 0 comments

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