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Back to SchoolEnglish Language Arts Reading (ELAR)Online Tools and Apps

Five Creative Back-to-School Activities with Book Creator

by Dr. Monica Burns
written by Dr. Monica Burns

Are you heading back to school? Use Book Creator this school year to take a creative spin on your back-to-school activities! It’s a powerful creative tool for students of all ages. Students can record their voices, capture video, and add text, emojis, shapes, and images to the pages of an interactive book.

What’s New in Book Creator?

This school year, you are in for a treat. There are lots of exciting new updates in Book Creator. If you checked out this recent post on Book Creator’s blog, you already know some of the fantastic features you can access this school year.

In addition to a newly updated certification program, when you open up Book Creator, you’ll find a great new commenting option this summer. If you’re committed to giving feedback to students, you can add comments directly to student pages. 

How does commenting in Book Creator work? You’ll now see a talk bubble with a + sign on each page in a student’s book. When you tap this button, you can add feedback to a student’s page. The options include using video, voice, text, and more!

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Five Back-to-School Activities

Book Creator is a favorite creation tool for all parts of the school year, but as you head back to school, these five activities are perfect for the first few weeks.

#1 – Set up a portfolio.

Students can use this remixable template or start from scratch to make their portfolios. Although their portfolio will grow over the school year, they can set it up during the first few weeks of school and design a cover. Simply hit the remix button and a copy will be added straight into your Book Creator library.

#2 – Share a favorite place.

When I introduce teachers to Book Creator, this prompt is one of my favorites for helping educators get to know this powerful tool. Of course, you can use this prompt to introduce students to Book Creator, too. It’s an excellent way to share a place they love and get to know their classmates. Book Creator has a great Travel Guide (which you can remix), and you can also add a Google Map to showcase where in the world their favorite place is!

Postcard Travel Guide

#3 – Set goals.

The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to set goals. Have students create a book highlighting three goals they have for the fall. You might make an example with three of your own goals to share with students and revisit the books during the first few months of the school year. How about adding a Canva Book Cover straight in? Book Creator integrated Canva as well as other apps like Giphy, Bitmoji, 3D Models, and more earlier this year.

Book Creator and Canva

#4 – Work together.

Introduce collaboration to students at the start of the school year. You can start small with just two students working on a book together. This activity provides an opportunity to discuss digital citizenship skills and expectations for navigating digital spaces.

Book Creator Collaboration

#5 – Share a passion.

Learners of all ages like to talk about their interests and passions. Encourage students to share something they love like a favorite activity, book, sport, animal, or other topic they can write about. You might give students an outline or table of contents for this creation. Try out one of the 18 templates and themes that are integrated into Book Creator to provide choice and enhance creativity. 

Book Creator Templates

Ready to get started with Book Creator? To kick off the school year, use one of the ideas in this post or remix this ready-to-use template designed with back to school in mind. Make sure to share your student creations, teacher examples, and ideas for using Book Creator on social media! Tag @TCEA, @BookCreatorApp, and @ClassTechTips in your posts.

Upcoming Webinar

August 11: Join Monica Burns for a special webinar with Book Creator, 9 Creative Back-to–School Activities. Use this link to grab your free spot.

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Back to SchoolCulturally ResponsiveSocial-Emotional Learning

10 First Day of School Activities Shared by Teachers

by Emily Horn
written by Emily Horn

I recently came across a post by @Teacher2Teacher on Twitter that I just HAD to bookmark. They asked a simple question: “Do you have any back to school rituals that you just LOVE?” Boy was I excited to explore the answers and activities shared! Here are some of my favorites.

Name Pronunciation

Renee Dawson (@APSITSdawson) had a fantastic idea to share. She has her students record the correct pronunciation of their names using Microsoft Flip (formerly Flipgrid) so that everyone can pronounce names correctly from the start of the year.

What’s Your Name Story?

Stevie Frank (@steviefrank23) uses a ball of yarn to complete an ice breaker with students. She asks the question, “What’s your name story?” and tosses the yarn to a student. The recipient answers, holds on to the yarn, and then throws the ball of yarn to another student who answers. This continues until the whole class has participated. A web of yarn is created between all the students. “By the end, we all see how we’re connected, and we get to learn parts of identity,” says Stevie. You can do this activity with all kinds of questions!

Student Superheroes

I absolutely love this idea from Mark Holt (@Holteacher). He calls his 5th grade students superheroes. On the first day of school, they decorate capes with a superhero name and symbol they create for themselves. Mark says, “Some of the students wear their capes all year long.”

Letter to the Teacher

@PamAmendola has students write her a letter. In the letter, they tell her about their lives, their families, their likes/dislikes, and anything else they’d like to share about themselves. “I get an authentic, low stakes writing sample where I hear their voice,” she says.

Team Building with Puzzles

@lberrelez32 buys some 24-piece children’s puzzles from Dollar Tree. She partners up students with one partner blindfolded. Only the blindfolded student can touch the puzzle. “Their partner has to talk them through putting it together. Great team building activity,” she says.

My First Day

Mrs. Moore (@BookDragon_Kat) works with a lot of military kids. She says that reading “My First Day” is a great way for them to share about where they’ve lived, build connections, and learn about how people in different parts of the world go to school.

Plastic Cup Challenge

@Riverart9 puts students in groups of four to five and gives them an equal number of cups of varied sizes and made of different materials. Then she challenges the groups to build the tallest tower of cups. She likes this as a first day of school activity because it encourages teamwork and resilience.

The Name Juggle

Tyle Pelletier (@TPelletierG5) named his favorite activity as being “The Name Juggle.” In this game, students take a ball and say the name of the person they’re tossing it to. Increase the complexity and fun by adding more balls and speeding up the game as students get to know each other’s names.

“Where I’m From” Poems

One activity suggested by @Creative_Ink16 is writing “Where I’m From” poems. Here’s an example with a template based on “Where I’m From” by poet George Ella Lyons. This site also includes a video of students performing their poems. “The students decorate their final drafts, and we hang them up on the classroom wall,” adds Creative_Ink16. I absolutely love this idea.

Letters from Last Year

If you had students write letters at the end of last school year, it’s a great way to introduce incoming students to their new environment. @Kwillmann suggests “reading letters written by last year’s students about how to succeed in class.” It also gives students something to look forward to doing at the end of the year.

Do you have any favorites to add to the list? Tell us about them in the comments, and let’s all have a great first day of school!

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Back to School

Ways to Welcome Your Teachers Back to School

by Diana Benner
written by Diana Benner

It’s important to go above and beyond in welcoming your staff back to school as the new school year approaches. Taking that time to make them feel appreciated and welcomed will go a long way toward setting a positive tone for the school year. Let’s take a look at some ideas.

Write a Welcoming Note

Writing a personal note is a simple and effective way to welcome your staff back. You can give them the note on the first day they return from summer break or wait until the first day of school. If you have a large number of staff, you might want to get started now or get some help. If you need a template, check out this Welcome Back to School Note that can be copied and modified. In the note, tell your staff how excited you are for the new school year and how thankful you are for them. Your note will go a long way in showing them how much you appreciate them. In addition, it will help build those strong relationships between you and your team.

Have an Informal First Day Back

There are a ton of meetings when staff come back from summer break. Why not have an informal first day back? Do some ice breakers and getting-to-know-you activities, provide lunch, and keep the schedule light. While I know there is a lot of information to cover at the beginning of school and schedules can be full, remember that the first day back is hard. Some staff might be anxious, so this will help take the pressure off. You’ll find that a lot can still be accomplished even if the first day back is informal.

Give a Self-Care Kit

The start of the school year can be stressful. Give your staff a self-care kit to start the year off right. You can include things like a mug, instant coffee or tea bags, hand lotion, lip balm, gift cards, energy bars, and other snacks.

Another thing you can add to the self-care kit is a gratitude jar. A gratitude jar is a jar filled with reminders of what you’re grateful for. Using small pieces of paper, your staff can write down what they’re thankful for and add a note or two to their jar each week. They can visit the jar whenever they need encouragement and pull out a note or two. Gratitude reminds us of what we have, and research shows that staying grateful can improve our mental health. You can even set up a table where staff can decorate their jars.

Get to Know Your Teachers

Building relationships with and getting to know your staff is critical. Give your team an opportunity to share special facts about themselves. Icebreaker and team-building activities are perfect examples of how to learn more about your staff.

In addition, have them complete a form that tells you even more about them. The form can include questions like, “What is your favorite snack?” This will help you personalize appreciation gifts throughout the year. Here is an example of things to include on your form.

Create a Memorable “Welcome Back” Video

In this blog post by Dr. Bruce Ellis, you can find ways to welcome your staff back that take little effort but some creativity. You could use Flip to introduce yourself to your team. You could even create a YouTube video and post it online. If you don’t like to be in front of a camera, you can still inspire your staff with video. Explore a variety of inspirational videos at http://bit.ly/educatorsinspire. 

These are just a few ways you can welcome your staff back. Also, while they may have been working all year long, don’t forget to include your secretarial staff, the custodial staff, IT staff, and everyone else that makes up the school community.

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Back to School

Quotes for the New School Year

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

It is getting to be that time of year when you can smell freshly sharpened pencils and a box of brand new crayons in the air. It’s the time when I start to gather all the good ideas I’ve come across in my travels or on social media. As I was perusing Twitter, I stopped on this question posted by an Illinois Director of Secondary Education, Dan Lamboley. “My district is looking for a child-centered, inspirational quote to put on the wall in our entryway. Any good suggestions?”

Immediately, I knew Twitterific educators would promptly answer the call. And they did. Here are a few of my favorites!

Quotes for Teachers

Each one, reach one. – Cori Coburn-Shiflett

Life affords no greater responsibility, than the raising of the next generation. – C. Everett Coop

Tell me, and I forget. Teach me ,and I may remember. Involve me, and I learn. – Ben Franklin

We rise by lifting others. – Robert Ingersoll

To inspire people, don’t show them your super powers. Show them theirs.  – Alexander Den Hejjer

Students don’t need a perfect teacher. They need a teacher who gets them excited about learning. A teacher who smiles and makes them enjoy coming to school. Each and every day.  – Richard P. Feynman

A school is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside. – Lon Watters

A smile is the universal WELCOME! – Max Eastman

Quotes for Students

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose – Dr. Seuss

Here We Grow! – unknown

Amazing things happen here. – unknown

The world wouldn’t spin the same without you! – Brandarius Johnson

Posted by Brandarius Johnson, Las Vegas, Nevada

Be Yourself. Everybody else is already taken – Oscar Wilde

You are capable of amazing things! – unknown

No one is good at everything, but everyone is good at something! – unknown

BElieve in YOUrself. – unknown

Quotes about Kindness

In a world where you can be anything: BE KIND. – unknown

Be brave. Dream big. Show kindness. – unknown

Be Kind. Be Bright. Be You. – unknown

Mrs. Minarich Channahon, Illinois and IDEA Illinois Educator of the Year

Be kind and change the world. – unknown

Kindness matters. – unknown

Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give. – unknown

Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen. – Conan O’Brien

Throw kindness around like confetti. – unknown

Quotes for Art Rooms

Every child is an artist.  – Pablo Picasso

You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. – Maya Angelou

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. – Henry David Thoreau

Creativity is intelligence having fun. – Albert Einstein

Make your mark. . .  and see where it takes you. – Peter Reynolds

Makers gonna make.– unknown

You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life. – Elizabeth Gilbert

What you create doesn’t need to be perfect. – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Quotes for STEM Spaces

Let’s get in gear with the 4C’s this year!

We Are INVENTORS!

Where will STEM take you?

Stand back! We’re building a better world.

Get in GEAR and ENGINEER.

Gearing up for Greatness at __________. (fill in the name of your class or school)

A Few Tips

Tip 1: Create a wall of inspirational quotes like Gillian Portwood McColgan. She purchased the Growth Mindset posters from TPT and purchased inexpensive frames from the Dollar Store to create a gallery wall of inspiring phrases.

Posted by Gillian Portwood McColgan

TIP 2: Consider using direct quotes from your students, and have a central bulletin board featuring a quote from a student each week.

TIP 3: To choose a quote for a school wall, invite all students to submit and have the students vote. Democracy in action!

TIP 4: If you are looking to make your own try Adobe Express or Canva. Or just keep it simple- create a background in PowerPoint or Google Slides to create your own. Visit my blog on fancy fonts to jazz up your inspirational quote.

TIP 5: Create a bulletin board word cloud, like Naomi Clark did, using different fonts and an electronic cutting machine (Cricut or a Silhouette).

Posted by Naomi Clark, New Hampshire Posted in the Elementary STEM Specials Teachers Facebook Group

Words could include:

  • work hard
  • ask questions
  • persist
  • be curious
  • try
  • learn
  • read
  • think
  • capable

These inspirational words are just a start. There are millions available. If you have a favorite, please drop it in the comments! I know other bulletin boards and walls across the world would love to showcase your motivational and inspiring quotes.

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Online Tools and Apps

MockoFUN for Teachers: A Free Design Tool

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Finding new, creative tools with templates can be difficult. Who wants to spend hours designing a flyer from scratch? That’s why tools like Canva for Education make life so much easier. In this blog entry, let me introduce you to another tool chock-full of templates and design ideas. You will be creating designs with fresh new looks in no time at all.

Featuring MockoFUN

In brief, MockoFUN is a virtual platform for innovative image design. You can create backgrounds, business cards, greeting cards, Facebook posts, and flyers. Each category is replete with templates that you can start with and make your own. Want to design an infographic with a different look? MockoFUN is your creative design buddy.

mockofun

Free Access to Photos, Graphics, Videos, and Audio

MockoFUN provides free access to digital design tools you can create with. Those tools include the following with quick tutorials to show them off:

  • Photo editor. This makes online photo editing and applying filters, masks, frames, and cool effects a simple task. See how to use the blur effect.
  • Logo maker. Know how to work with vector shapes and clipart? Use your skills to design logos that include circular or curved text. Make labels online.
  • Text editor. Start with 800 free fonts and insert text symbols and apply effects. You can even create curved text!

MockoFUN Is Free for Teachers

What’s more, MockoFUN is FREE for teachers. You get a Premium User Subscription at no cost. All you have to do is apply. Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s an adapted excerpt of their announcement:

MockoFun is the perfect graphic design tool for teachers. Make worksheets, presentations, posters, and classroom decoration kits. MockoFun offers all the tools you need to improve the learning process.

Educators from K-16 can apply to the MockoFun Free for Teachers program. You will get all the features included in the Premium Users Subscription for FREE!

What does that subscription include?

  • Premium resources
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Priority support
  • Template sharing

Even better than other tools you may use, the free account gives you full access to everything you need. What’s more, you can put your own images and content into MockoFUN for use. The possibilities are endless!

Not sure you can get up to speed? You can begin using MockoFUN as fast as it takes to apply for their free teacher account. They have tutorials you can explore now to help you get started.

mockofun

Templates Abound

As a classroom teacher, I always enjoyed creating certificates. Making them in a word processor was a tedious job, though. Now, MockoFUN makes it easy to create magazine covers, flyers, certificates, and more.

mockofun

There are many more templates you can access. You can adjust or adapt MockoFUN templates as you need to, and you can also make your own templates.

mockofun

Design created with MockoFUN

Here is a collection of YouTube videos featuring MockoFUN tutorials:

Embrace Creative Possibilities

One of the most exciting features of MockoFUN is its versatility. Consider how many different designs you can generate:

mockofun

I hope that you are ready to embrace all the creative possibilities. Give MockoFUN a spin. And, don’t forget to apply for their free teacher account!

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

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Canva for Education
Online Tools and Apps

Canva for Education: The Ultimate Template Tool

by Emily Horn
written by Emily Horn

As educators, we are creative, innovative, and hardworking. But, let’s be honest, we don’t have time to reinvent the wheel. Therefore, templates are our friends. That said, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite digital design tools: Canva for Education. Why do I love Canva? Great question. I’ll give you a few of the many reasons as I outline some ways I’ve used it as both a teacher and administrator.

What is Canva?

In short, Canva for Education is a creative, digital design platform. It offers templates, resources, and collaboration tools for creating and editing anything and everything from posters and flyers, to worksheets, presentations, and infographics.

Free Access to Photos, Graphics, Videos, and Audio

Canva for Education Elements

Canva is dedicated to providing educators free access to tools. You can get verified as an educator and qualify for a free Canva Pro account! With your free Canva Pro account, you can access:

  • More than 420,000 templates
  • Millions of images, videos, audio files, and graphics
  • Thousands of fonts

It is important to note that uploading your own images, videos, audio, and graphics is 100% possible in Canva.

Canva for Education Templates Galore

When I was a principal, I especially enjoyed creating certificates using Canva for bi-weekly, staff-nominated core values awards. But Canva isn’t just for making certificates. Calendars, presentations, lesson plans, newsletters, worksheets, graphic organizers, certificates, flyers, and more are right at your fingertips. I showcase several examples of editable, pre-made templates in the infographic above, but I assure you, this doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg.

Browse the education templates, search for templates using the search bar, or opt to create your own unique design from scratch. You can use a template as is, but you can also freely adjust, tweak, and edit a Canva template to make it yours. Once you’ve chosen or created your templates, you can reuse them time after time (and year after year). I’ve used many of their templates, as well as created my own, and Canva has yet to disappoint.

See Canva’s Templates

Here is a short, informative video on learning templates in Canva:

Click here to access the Teach with Canva tutorials playlist.

Collaborating with Teams

If you want to work collaboratively, you can absolutely share your templates and designs with whomever you’d like. Canva offers a view and edit option for sharing. You can create and share with a team, share with individuals, and even create groups within a team for sharing and collaborative editing purposes. Additionally, Canva offers a way to provide feedback notes on designs, and team members are notified of feedback via email.

Note: Canva is also a great tool to use with students, especially when it comes to project-based learning and practicing higher-level thinking skills. You can get started with classes in Canva by either importing your students using Google or Clever, providing them with an invitation link, or manually adding them to classes in Canva using their email addresses. Canva integrates with all the major virtual classroom tools (Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas, and more). The feedback notes option is also available for classes in Canva; you can provide your students with feedback, and they can provide peer feedback to each other.

View a tutorial on how to collaborate with your team members in Canva here.

Edit PDFs with Canva for Education

Perhaps my favorite feature in Canva is their free, online PDF editor. Take any PDF, upload it, and make your own adjustments, additions, and edits. Even though PDF graphics can sometimes be affected, I have been very pleased with this tool. Not only can you upload PDFs, but you can also download and save your designs in PDF, JPG, PNG, MP4, or GIF format, giving you a lot of options.

Additional Resources for How to Use Canva for Education

I hope that you are inspired to try Canva for Education and that it is as useful a tool for you as it has been for me over the years. I’d like to leave you with links to two webinars highlighting ideas for using Canva in both elementary and high school classrooms. Have fun being creative and collaborative with this great digital tool, and feel free to share your own ideas or projects with us in the comments section below.

The Canva Classroom Webinar (Elementary)

Sparking Creativity Webinar (High School)

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celebrate
Announcements/Important Dates

Back to School: A Reason to Celebrate Each Day

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

So we all know the “biggies” of the fall holidays. Each month has something to celebrate: Labor Day in September, Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa to round out December. But as we enter the new school year, why not find a reason to celebrate each day? Just in case you want to throw a few mini-surprise celebrations with your students, I have a couple of great resources for you.

Screenshot by author

National Today Website

The National Today website is the place to go. This is the ultimate resource for 1,783 fun, unusual, and unique national days, international days, and holidays. The website has several ways to find out what is happening every day of the year, and it even provides ideas for ways to observe. You can visit the site and look for reasons to celebrate by trend, date, topic, or month. The website provides a ton of information for each national and international special day, such as:

  • History
  • Timeline
  • FAQ’s
  • Importance
  • Ideas for Activities
  • Traditions
  • Stats

National Day Calendar

Screenshot by author

National Day Calendar is another resource for celebration. It tracks 1,500 national days, national weeks, and national months. (Keep in mind that this website has plenty of advertisements on it, so it is a teacher resource and not geared toward student use.) In my opinion, the best part of the National Day Calendar website is the ability to sign up for the daily calendar notifications that are delivered right to your inbox. I must say that, every morning, it is a delight to find out what fabulous things are getting celebrated daily. 

As a bonus to educators, the National Day Calendar research team has organized monthly observances for teachers in what they call the Classroom. They have designed projects, lessons, and puzzles centered around most national days. They continue adding and growing their content all the time, and if you are a foodie, the recipe section just might be the cherry on the top. 

I dare you to celebrate the out-of-the-box, extraordinary, and unique days of 2021-22. By the way, Dare Day is June 1. Start your planning now– I double dare you.

Featured image created by author.

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icebreaker
Google Tips and Tricks

Fun Icebreaker Jamboard Templates for Back to School

by Diana Benner
written by Diana Benner

Icebreaker questions are a great way to celebrate the new school year with your students and staff, and Google Jamboard is the perfect tool to use. Let’s take a look at some fun and engaging templates you can use right away.

Icebreaker Jamboard Templates

The Jamboard templates below are designed to get your students talking. Listen to them explain and share their ideas about the questions on the jams as you learn new things about each of them. You can even join in on the fun so your students can get to know you too.

You can use one Jamboard on selected days to check in with your students or use them all during the first week of school. The possibilities are endless.

If You Could

“If You Could” questions will spark your student’s imaginations. Asking questions like, “If you could rule the world for a day, what would you change?” and “If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be and why?” will really get them talking to you and each other. Check out this If You Could Jamboard Template.

Would You Rather

“Would You Rather” questions give you an insight into your student’s preferences. This Would You Rather Jamboard Template has a few examples of questions you can ask. However, if you need more ideas, be sure to see this list of questions that are student friendly.

Favorites

Students love to talk about their favorites. This is a great way to help students find commonalities among themselves, which goes a long way to fostering classroom community. Look at this Favorites Jamboard Template.

Get to Know You

This Get to Know You Jamboard Template has a set of random questions your students can answer. The more you get to know your students, the better rapport you will have with them.

Tic-Tac-Toe

Who doesn’t love a good game of tic-tac-toe? With this Tic-Tac-Toe Jamboard Template, students read each statement and then place an “X” in the box that is true. The first two frames of the jam have examples; then you can create your own on the rest of the frames.

Random Icebreaker Questions

This Random Icebreaker Jamboard Template has even more questions. For example, “What do you think is the greatest invention of all time?” and “What’s the last movie you saw in a theater?

Most of these icebreaker templates were shared by Patty Jeanne of the Teachers Using Jamboards Facebook group. If you are looking for even more Jamboard templates, check out these for social-emotional learning (SEL) and for elementary students and secondary students.

And if you just want more ideas for icebreakers, be sure to download our free ebook Digital Icebreakers That Shatter.

More Back-to-School Resources

Back-to-School Roundup

10 First Day of School Activities Shared by Teachers

Three Editable Back-to-School Activities for Language Development

Five Creative Back-to-School Activities from Book Creator

Free Classroom Posters

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Good TeachingLeadership

Texas Resources for the 2020-21 School Year

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and national education agencies and organizations have worked to coordinate, provide models, and create plans for the uncertain 2020-21 school year. In Texas, home of TCEA, the state education agency is updating two programs meant to provide support to districts as the school year approaches.

Within the Texas Education Agency‘s (TEA) focus on instructional continuity, it has developed a partnership with PBS, as well as a general instructional continuity framework. In addition, two recently updated tools are available to help schools get the new year off to a good start.

Strong Start 2020

TEA’s Strong Start initiative provides planning tools and example plans, sample school models, and implementation supports, which include webinar and training offerings. Sample school models include detailed options for fully on-campus, fully online, and hybrid instruction models.

texas education agency
Some of the options listed on TEA’s Strong Start page

The Strong Start portal includes downloadable resources and tools directly from TEA, but also links to decision-making tools, plans, and guides from organizations and educational institutions from across the country.

Texas Home Learning

Another TEA project, Texas Home Learning, is being updated for the coming year. Entering its third phase, the program is designed to provide contingency at-home learning resources for Texas schools and districts.

The third phase of the project is designed for the 2020-21 school year, while phases one and two from this spring and summer, were meant to provide resources in between school years.

texas education agency

Phase three includes standards-aligned curriculum, free access to learning management systems, and more, according to the initiative’s website.

Sharing Useful Tools

What resources, grants, tools, or techniques are you using or hope to use this school year? Let us know in the comments!

Photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash

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timeline
ChromebooksESL/ELLGood TeachingGoogle Tips and Tricks

Timelines Made Easy

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Why not introduce students to the concept of creating timelines to document their adventures? Consider guiding them through crafting timelines of their recent experiences. Demonstrating how to illustrate events with pictures and videos can be a powerful learning experience at any time of the year.

Timelines are critical components to teach. Students stuck in paper-and-pencil classrooms struggle to make them. I know I did when I was an elementary student. Sequencing and comprehension go together, per Reading Rockets:

The ability to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension strategy, especially for narrative texts. Sequencing is also an important component of problem-solving across subjects.

Sequencing in a timeline aids comprehension for English Language Learners (ELL) students:

Sequencing [in a timeline]…provides comprehension support to English language learners (ELLs), helping them make connections and recognize patterns in a series or process. Because numerical markers such as hours, years, days or months are placed apart with plenty of space in between, timelines can appear visually less complex than pure text, helping ELLs more easily relate events to their corresponding times (Source).

Knowing how to make timelines is an important job skill. Don’t think of it as arranging pictures and dates in chronological order alone. Rather, think of it as an unfolding story about what happened, who did what, where, and when. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a free tool for creating timelines with Google Sheets.

Why Are Timelines Important?

“The project timeline is the beating heart of every project,” says Angela Bunner. “It captures the essence of what the project will accomplish and how it will be done.” As a technology director, project management always involved crafting a timeline. Bunner says that all timelines share common elements. Those elements include:

  • Tasks: A list of what must be done
  • Dates: A list of when tasks will achieve completion status
  • Duration: How long each task will take
  • Prerequisites: The order in which tasks must be done

For timelines that look to the past, there are more expectations. Jen Giambrone (History Associates) recommends you review this infographic. In “A quick guide to Timelines,” they ask a series of questions:

  • Is a timeline the best way to tell my organization’s story?
  • How do I pick a platform for an online timeline?
  • Who is your key audience for the timeline?
  • What are the project goals?
  • What are some of the important milestones?
  • Do you have a style guide?
  • How many entries will you have in your timeline?
  • What kinds of media will you include, and where will that media come from?

For classroom timelines, it may be easy enough to create a Google Doc with tables or a template like this one. Some may prefer to use a Google Sheet, inserting images, titles, and quick pictures. And you may want to see how to make timelines with Google Slides or PowerPoint. But another nifty tool is available. Care to take a look?

Introducing Timeline JS

Finding top-notch timeline making solutions (web or software) can be challenging. Often, they cost money, and who wants to pay for a timeline creation solution they may only use a few times?

Northwestern University’s Knight Lab’s TimelineJS offers a free, open-source tool. You can use TimelineJS to build an interactive timeline with rich visuals and add all sorts of media to your timeline, such as:

  • Twitter
  • Flickr
  • YouTube, Vimeo, Vine
  • Dailymotion
  • Google Maps
  • Wikipedia
  • SoundCloud
  • Document Cloud and more

Take a moment to watch their two-minute video introduction and how-to. It walks you through the process starting with a Google Sheet template that Knight Lab’s provides. In no time, you will have a timeline you can embed.

Timeline Making Tips

Some of the tips the Knight Lab folks offer appear below:

  1. Keep it short, no more than twenty slides
  2. Select stories that have a strong chronology
  3. Embed each event in a story that encompasses all events
  4. Be sure to blend in small events that lead to something bigger

You can see some of the timelines created. Find them online.

timelines

Making timelines means crafting a compelling story that arises from insignificant or significant events. These events, taken alone, may be inconsequential. When combined, they show what happened in a way that can have a profound impact. Use TimelineJS in your school, office, or classroom for timelines made easy.

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