Tag:

digital tools

Four Ways to Avoid Pop-ups When Reading Online

by Miguel Guhlin March 21, 2022

written by Miguel Guhlin

Have you ever wanted to read and annotate a news article, but a wall of advertising and pop-ups stood in your way? If so, you may have encountered a paywall. These may prevent you from distraction-free online reading and/or content annotation. But let’s explore four approaches that can help you access content without all the distracting pop-ups and advertisements.

Before we jump into that, let’s explore how paywalls work.

What Is a Paywall?

You may find yourself ready to read an engaging story. You reach for your digital highlighter, then a window pops up. The window is the paywall– an invitation to become a subscriber. Once you become a subscriber, you can access the content. At this point, you can use your highlighting/annotation software.

How Do Paywalls Work?

Paywalls rely on browser cookies stored on your device. If your identification cookie reveals you as a paid subscriber, you get access. If not, you’re blocked. Your annotation tools may not work, or the article may feature advertisements despite your access. How can you make the content more readable and accessible?

Approaches for Your Consideration

Ready to read and annotate content without advertisements? These approaches can save you time and effort.

Approach #1: Browser-Based Readers

Most modern browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Apple’s Safari browser, include a reader. The reader strips out unnecessary advertisements and content, focusing on the text. As you can see in the article below, the Reader View extension in Microsoft Edge strips away clutter:

Apple’s Safari browser does much the same thing. Tap on the Aa that appears next to the web address/URL at the bottom of the screen, as shown in the image below:

Apple’s Safari browser makes it easy to avoid advertisements and pop-ups. Use its built-in reader.

Most Chrome and Firefox browsers have this functionality. If they don’t, you can add it easily with a Chrome extension. Here are a few Chrome extensions with a brief description from their website:

Unpaywall.

Legally get full text of scholarly articles as you browse. When you view a research article, Unpaywall automatically looks for a copy in our index of 20 million free, legal fulltext PDFs.

Reader View.

Strips away clutter like buttons, background images, and changes the page’s text size, contrast and layout for better readability.

Bypass Paywall.

Bypass Paywall is a browser extension that allows you to read content that is behind a paywall on websites or blogs, etc.

Clear This Page.

This service takes any web article or news page and returns only the relevant content, freeing you from any clutter, including ads, paywalls, article limits, pop-ups, and more.

Let Me Read That Article.

Here’s an extension that will intercept those annoying popups and let you read that article.

These are only a few of the available extensions. Start at the top of the list and find the one that best meets your needs.

Approach #2: URL Shorteners to the Rescue

Here’s a hot tip since we’re discussing browser-based avoidance of advertisements: Website address (a.k.a. Uniform Resource Locators or URLs for short) shorteners also can help you avoid ads. This approach, introduced to me by Jennifer Bergland, involves copying a web URL and pasting the URL into a shortening service like TinyURL.com (others may prefer Bit.ly). The resulting short address is pasted into a website annotation tool.

For example, let’s say you wanted to get an easy-to-read version of “Five History Walks for Teaching Texas History,” a phenomenal article in TCEA’s TechNotes blog. But it has embedded videos, sidebar advertisements, and a pop-up email subscription request. Let’s follow Jennifer’s steps.

Step 1 – Copy the Website address.

Highlight the website address at the top of the page, and press Ctrl-C (Command C on a Mac) to copy it. Or right-click on the address and copy it, as shown below.

Step 2 – Shorten Address with a URL Shortener

Go to TinyURL.com and paste in the address. Then you’ll get a shortened address or a “tiny URL.”

In this case, the result was https://tinyurl.com/5n8mne86.

TIP: What’s amazing is that you can use a Chrome extension for TinyURL or Bit.ly without going to their websites. The Chrome extension will copy the shortened address into your device’s digital clipboard.

Once you have the shortened URL, you’re ready for Step 3.

Step 3 – Go to Your Annotation Tool

With your shortened URL in hand, you’re ready to go to a website. This step makes it a simple matter to annotate an article or website. There are other web-based annotation tools. In this example, I am relying on the Reader extension:

When you click on the Reader view, you will get a reader-friendly version of the article. It will be available sans advertisements and annoying content. With an account, you can create highlights of text or annotations.

Another approach is to rely on a website like 12ft Ladder. It suggests this use for itself:

Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we’ll try our best to remove the paywall and get you access to the article.
Source: https://12ft.io/

Approach #3: Flipboard App

The third approach you can take to reading ad-rich content with pop-ups is through mobile apps. One popular app is the Flipboard app.

Tap on the Reader view, and you get a nice view!

Approach #4: Archive.is

A fourth approach that is reported to work? Archive.is website. Simply paste in the website you want, and it will create a version of the content you can view. You can also get a web browser extension (e.g. Chrome or Firefox).

Consider the Law

Worried that these approaches may have you breaking the law? The truth is, you will have to make a determination on a case-by-case basis. Only you know if you are using these approaches to bypass paywalls for content you haven’t paid for. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides some guidance. It prohibits circumventing technological means of control. These means of control restrict access to copyrighted work (source).

No More Advertisements

Want to avoid advertisements altogether? It’s difficult to imagine a web that isn’t advertiser paid. But you can take more forceful action against distracting ads and pop-ups. You may have to add AdBlock Chrome extension, for example, or rely on a security-conscious browser like Brave. Give these solutions a try next time you want distraction-free articles.

Bonus: Five Digital Tools for Note-Taking and Outlining

March 21, 2022 0 comment

Online Tools and Apps

New Digital Tools I’ve Discovered Lately

by Lori Gracey March 17, 2022

written by Lori Gracey

While we can all agree that using eight million different digital tools with students for learning is a very bad idea (talk about overload!), we can also all agree that having choice in our resources makes us better educators. So, with that in mind, here are a few new digital tools and websites that I’ve discovered lately. Please let me know which ones resonate with you.

YoTeach! – I was a HUGE fan of the site Today’s Meet, a powerful and free backchannel perfect for classroom use. When that site died, there was nothing to replace it for a long time. But now there is! YoTeach! (a terrible name, but a great resource) offers the same backchannel discussions and is also free. There are no limits to the number of participants and no limits to how many characters can be typed per message. Create your free room and check Enable Admin Features and you can add several more free tools to the resource, as well as hide the room from any searches.

digital tools

YellKey – If you need a fast URL shortener just for a small acount of time, take a look at YellKey. It’s free and lets you set the time from five minutes to 24 hours. There’s also an extension for most web browsers.

EasyPolls – Finding a free polling tool can be difficult. But EasyPolls meets the need. Create a free account and then create your poll; it’s that easy. Answer choices can be text, images, or even videos. Additional features are available in the Premium version, but, to be honest, I haven’t needed any of them yet myself. The one bad thing about it is that it does have an ad at the bottom of each poll.

Weave Silk – Take a quick mind break and create are using this free website. Simply move your mouse over the screen to draw. The faster your mouse moves, the more a second color is added. Change the color palette under the Controls and save your masterpiece as a PNG file. What beauty will you create today?

Crowd Buzzer – This is a simple tool that gives each student with a device the ability to buzz in to answer a question from the teacher. It is easy to set up and works from any device. It even provides a way to disable the buzzers so no one can buzz in while you are asking a question or giving instructions.

Stash101 – I am very impressed with this free “immersive banking and investing simulation. Students learn financial literacy by navigating the complex world of personal finance—budgeting, paying bills, earning an income, saving, investing, and more. With Stash101, kindergarten through college students experience a safe space to explore real-world financial situations and practice informed decision-making.” The teacher creates a free account and then shares a pin number with her students to create their accounts. Students then earn a simulated salary that’s “deposited” into virtual bank accounts (no real money). Teachers can also “pay” students for a variety of activities from completing an assignment well to showing gratitude to The tools includes a free financial literacy curriculum in their resources hub, which features lesson plans, activities, and more.

digital tools

Radial Timers – Timers are a very useful addition to classroom work, helping students (and the teacher) stay on task. But the blaring countdown timer that explodes at the end can be a little jarring. That’s where radial timers come in, still keeping everyone on time but with less stress. Here are 2-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute, and 25-minute radial timers.

Low Earth Orbit Visualization (LEO) – This site just amazes me. It shows high-resolution data on objects in low Earth orbit for the last 24 hours. You can filter by type of object, country of origin, and more. You can also click on a particular object to find out more about it. There is so much information here!

LearnHip – This site was designed to help individuals learn English, but can be used for any students. Ceate a free teacher account and then you’ll have access to conversation starters, story cards, describe the picture, what happens next, and more. There are also a variety of game formats that you can use to create your own online activities.

I hope that you found a new digital tool that will work with your learners!

March 17, 2022 4 comments

Chromebooks Math

Five Simple Graphing Tools Make Graphs Easy and Fun

by Miguel Guhlin February 11, 2022

written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to make stylized graphs? You may find yourself reaching for Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Both offer a wealth of graphs you can take advantage of. But what about simple graphing tools to enhance teaching and learning or to make a quick illustration of a point?

I’m not talking about tools like these, which are excellent for graphing math or science data sets (you can find even more at CommonSense.org.):

No, I’m talking about fun graphing tools. My criteria for fun graphing tools? They must:

Be drop-dead simple and easy to use
Include fun graph styles that aren’t skinny, business graphs
Be browser-based
Not require an account
Of course, be fun to work with.

Let’s take a look at my five favorites.

Tool #1: Create a Graph

Coming at us from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), you can have a lot of fun with this tool. Its Create a Graph offers a way to make visual communication easier. With this tool, it’s easy for you or your students to create bar, line, area, pie, and XY graphs. Give it a try!

Tool #2: Chartle

Chartle is an easy-to-use online graphing tool that allows you to make line charts, bar graphs, bubble charts, pie charts, and donut charts. You can also generate scatter, radar, and polar graphs. And look at those colors. Now that’s fun.

Tool #3: Plovtar

This graphing tool makes it easy to make and share graphs with others. You can create a line graph, pie chart, bar graph, or live graph. It also includes graph samples you can look at before getting started. Try Plovtar out and see if it really is the easiest graph maker.

Tool #4: Online Charts

This online charts tool offers more graphs than the other tools featured above. Take a look at these colorful examples:

Although setup requires a few clicks, it has a wizard that guides you through data entry. Online Charts also offers cool fonts that will appeal to any middle or high schooler’s sensibilities. You can save the graphs you create in a variety of formats, such as SVG, PNG, JPG, PDF, or export data as CSV. And you can save your chart for further editing later.

Tool #5: ImgFlip

The ImgFlip Chart Maker is easy as pie. While other chart makers offer lots of choices, this one keeps it simple. You do have some options for customizing your chart and text colors. And you get only three types of graphs: pie, donut, and bar.

Why Use Simple Graphs?

If you’re wondering about fun, simple graphing tools and why they are necessary, allow me to share how I relied on similar tools. It’s easy to get carried away and expect students to start using adult tools. But simple tools like The Graph Club, which I used with kinder through third grade students, are both easy to grasp and easy to use. They introduce students to graphing in a fun, easy way and prevent any frustrations that may come with more complexity.

Here’s one way someone described it:

Students can construct visual representations of information they have read. This can include analyzing, comparing, interpreting and synthesizing information.

With some graphing tools, you can combine pictures and images. These help young children describe their ideas in a concrete manner. Manipulating graphs fosters higher level comprehension skills like reasoning, evaluating, and synthesizing.

Practice with linking concepts in literature and math. It helps young children form new connections with text. Also, it fosters the transfer of thinking skills from one context to another.

With graphing tools, teachers can link literature and non-fiction texts to math tasks. These tasks enrich a young child’s experiences with books.

Who can argue with that explanation? It remains as true today as when it was first written.

There you go, my roundup of fun graph makers. Do you have any you prefer? If so, let us know in the comments.

Feature Image Source

Example pyramid. Screenshot by author

February 11, 2022 1 comment

Educational Research Good Teaching

Powerful and Easy Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

by Miguel Guhlin February 9, 2022

written by Miguel Guhlin

Interwoven into instruction, assessment has many benefits. Its biggest benefit? Aiding students and teachers in closing the learning gap. In the Fall of 2021, I attended TCEA’s Campus Technology Specialist Academy (CTSA). One of the sessions, led by Destiny Wagner and Kristofer Thurston, offered several gems related to using digital tools for formative assessment. These gems became some of my favorite takeaways. But before diving deeper into the tools, let’s take a look at formative assessment.

digital assessment — Reach out to Destiny Wagner (email: edtechdestiny@gmail.com) for more info on their excellent session.

What Is Formative Assessment?

In the Amazing Learning Design Outline (ALDO), I highlight the importance of assessment. Assessment is critical to crafting feedback that closes the learning gap. That gap, of course, is between where the student is now and where they need to be. Did you know that formative assessment can double student learning gains? Formative assessment is an ongoing, low-stakes assessment that provides such feedback to both students and teachers regularly. In other words, to gauge where students are in their learning, they must be assessed before, during, and after learning. And these assessments can tie into a wide variety of strategies.

It is also important to note that students are active collaborators in closing this gap since they are involved in the formative assessment process. Some have organized a list of assessment criteria teachers can use, and you can read the complete list in this online document (PDF). But today we’ll focus on assessments that I’ve grouped into understanding checks, checklists, and self-assessment tools.

Get PDF version – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R4LmCIqn6vuupDer7478Vww0X3tu14j_/view?usp=sharing

When working with students, keep these three tips in mind when providing feedback:

1. Ask the four questions:

What can the student do?
What can’t the student do?
How does the student’s work compare with that of others?
How can the student do better?

2. Take advantage of single-point rubrics to convey expectations.

3. Connect the feedback language you use to specific success criteria. One example might be, “How will I know I have learned this?” Be sure to share that feedback at the start of the lesson (adapted from source).

Group 1: Understanding Checks

Checks for understanding are one aspect of formative assessment. ASCD even published a book on the topic. It can be defined as:

The frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding. These checks for understanding identify learning needs. They also allow the teacher to track and adjust teaching.
Adapted from Source: Todd Finley’s Dipsticks to Check for Understanding via Edutopia.org

An example of a type of understanding check is the pre-assessment. The goal of pre-assessment is to discover what students know and to identify what they need to learn. Students can use these to set learning goals and also predict how well they will do.

One idea for formative checks for understanding also comes from Dataworks’ TAPPLE concept:

(T)each first
(A)sk a specific question
(P)ause, Pair-Share, and Point
(P)ick a random non-volunteer
(L)isten to the Response
(E)ffective Feedback

Are you already thinking of some ways you could use digital tools to (A)sk a specific question about what students have learned, or to (P)ause, Pair-share, and Point?

Since digital tools are flexible and can be used for a wide variety of purposes, they may lend themselves well to checks for understanding. In their session, Destiny and Kristofer shared several powerful and easy digital tools that could be used for understanding checks. Among those tools shared were:

Baamboozle. A versatile tool that students can use to create or participate in a wide variety of games. View video.

Mentimeter. Provides student polling and creates open-ended results in word clouds out of responses. View video.
Pear Deck. Perform “on the fly” assessments with social- emotional health check-ins. It works well with a variety of Google and Microsoft Office products. View video.
Plickers. Print coded cards that students can use. The teacher relies on a free app to scan student cards. The direction of the card shows students’ response. View video.
Poll Everywhere. Assess students with a simple poll. View video.
Socrative. Set up multiple choice, true/false, or short answer assessments. View results in real time via a teacher dashboard. View video.
StrawPoll. Create easy-to-embed, mobile-friendly polls students can complete. View video.

StrawPoll has become one of my new favorites but others at TCEA rely on Gimkit, Kahoot, Quizziz, and Quizlet. Of course, there are others, such as EdPuzzle, Playposit, and more.

Adapted from David Perkins (2003) The Ladder of Feedback and John Hattie (2014) The Power of Feedback | Get Your Own Copy.

Group 2: Checklists

Use checklists and rubrics to identify and clarify success criteria for students. Think of success criteria as a to-do list for learning intentions. This short twelve minute video can provide some background on success criteria.

One easy tool you can use to create a checklist is simply Google Sheets. Here’s a quick video on how to do that:

You can also create rubrics for students directly in Google Classroom. Here is a quick six minute video on how this can be done.

Group 3: Self-Assessment Tools

Self-assessment tools are used by students to take their own measure. As you might imagine, many of the digital tools shared so far would also work well for this purpose.

Becton Loveless offers these suggestions for students designing their own assessments:

Explain what self-assessment is and why it matters
Show a model of what it looks like, preferably from previous students
Teach students different strategies of self-assessment
Have students practice creating assessments, then discuss as a group
Conference with students throughout the process

Becton also offers several low-tech examples that may get you thinking. Among those examples you can adapt and use digitally, consider these:

For example, PBIS Rewards offers several ways to create rubrics online. My top three in that list include iRubric, Rubistar, and Teachnology Rubric Generator. And a web search on rubrics will yield many PDF-based rubrics.

Choosing a Digital Tool

Which tool you decide to use will depend on the depth of complexity and funding you have available. For example, Mentimeter, StrawPoll, Plickers are free. With the others, there may be costs associated depending on the features you want. The important point to remember is that creating low-stakes assessments is your focus, and these assessments should always connect to the learning objectives.

Feature Image Source

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

February 9, 2022 0 comment

Instructional Coaching

The Art of Coaching in the Digital Age

by Kate Gomez and Corinna Saiz January 5, 2022

written by Kate Gomez and Corinna Saiz

Teachers have leveraged technology to increase student learning in the classroom and it’s time for coaches to follow suit. How? Coaches (digital, instructional, data, and more) can use technology to increase their impact through teacher professional learning. Additionally, traditional coaching techniques can be enhanced with digital tools and used to increase effective technology use in the classroom. Used within Elena Aguilar’s Coaching Cycle and Google’s Five-Step Coaching Model, which are both circular in design, a continuation of coaching can be implemented. Consequently, a deepening of skills and understandings can be promoted through digital tools within the cycle.

Digital Tools for Goal Setting

The first stage of coaching is goal setting or identifying a focus with the teacher. Digital tools can certainly streamline this process. Two helpful tools are coaching choice boards and a shared space for brainstorming.

Coaching Choice Boards

You can create a coaching choice board using any program you’re comfortable with; we like using Google Slides or Jamboard. The beauty of a coaching choice board? It provides the teacher with a place to start. You can also include programs being used at your school and skill-driven topics. We recommend including components that will reinforce the 4Cs Framework or the ISTE standards.

Shared Spaces for Brainstorming

After selecting a general place to start your coaching sessions with the teacher, a shared space for idea generation is the next step. Two easy-to-use tools are Google Docs and Jamboard. We like to use the sticky note feature in Jamboard to jot down ideas and organize to create clarity for next steps with teachers. It’s key for you and the teacher to have clear, shared goals and next steps. Using these digital tools streamlines the process and will open an easy line of communication.

Digital Tools for Selection and Implementation

For the select and implement step in the coaching process, several digital tools can support your continued work with your teacher. Wakelet offers a space to post resources for use in the classroom and can be a resource that teachers revisit for future use. Padlet is a virtual bulletin board that can be used to list resources for your teacher. Additionally, these tools are collaborative so both of you can post resources and ideas. Padlet can also be a space where your teacher can post “reviews” of resources they’ve used, giving you some valuable feedback. Finally, another great way to provide resources for your teachers is a choice board, which can be in the form of a Google Doc, Google Slide, or a Padlet. Like Wakelet and Padlet, choice boards are a space where your teachers can click on a resource to learn more about it.

Padlet Digital Learning Choice Board — *Example Choice Board Using Padlet*

Digital Tools for Observation and Data Collection

After you’ve done the pre-work, it’s time to put it all into action during the implementation stage or observation and data-collection stage of coaching. There are undoubtedly many different tools to support teachers through this process.

Recording the Lesson

While it’s not a digital tool, your presence to support at the beginning of implementation can really boost a teacher’s confidence moving forward! If you can’t be present and you already have your teacher’s trust, it can sometimes be beneficial to record the classroom in action using a tablet on a tripod with a microphone attachment. This should only be done if your teacher is comfortable, and it should only be for reflection. We do not recommend you suggest this until you have a strong rapport with your teacher.

Student Surveys

In the meantime, what better critics than the students? When trying something new in class, it can be extremely helpful to do short surveys using Google Forms or reflecting through FlipGrid. If using a student survey, make sure it takes five minutes or less to complete.

Digital Tools for Reflection

Finally, for the reflection/identify step in the coaching process, you’ll want to provide your teacher with a means to discuss how the lesson went: what worked, what didn’t work, what they still have questions about, and finally, what their next steps are. We recommend a shared Google Doc where the teacher can reflect on the experience and you can give timely feedback on the same document. Some coaches provide surveys. In our experience, those have a low response rate; however, if you choose to use surveys, a great resource is Google Forms.

All of the digital tools that have been recommended in this article are free to use and have a gentle learning curve. If you’re learning a new tool, be honest with your teachers about your own learning. There is no better way to show teachers that they can learn new skills than sharing your own skill acquisition process. We recommend that all learning coaches consider adding a touch of technology to their practice to support their teachers and provide them with digital tools that just might make their job a little easier.

Kate and Corinna will be co-leading the Digital Learning Coaches: How to Build Capacity and Leverage Impact session at TCEA 2022. If you’ve not yet registered, you have until January 14 for a discounted rate, so don’t wait to register! You don’t want to miss these two and all the other great TCEA 2022 speakers and sessions.

January 5, 2022 11 comments

Online Tools and Apps

MockoFUN for Teachers: A Free Design Tool

by Miguel Guhlin November 5, 2021

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

November 5, 2021 0 comment

Online Tools and Apps

Canva for Education: The Ultimate Template Tool

by Emily Horn August 20, 2021

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 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)

August 20, 2021 0 comment

Online Tools and Apps

Fix Your Grumpy sELF: How to Change Your Bitmoji Expressions

by Miguel Guhlin December 9, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Have you noticed the Bitmoji elves displayed in the phone app or the Chrome Bitmoji extension? They are a bunch of grumpy elves. Perhaps they’re unhappy and want to strike, but can’t? Maybe there are strict labor laws at the North Pole, who knows? That’s only one possible reason that they are so grumpy looking in the Bitmoji app.

The question is, how do you fix those grumpy faces? In this blog entry, I’ll share some of the tools I use to turn sad faces into happy. At the end, you’ll find a video walkthrough of the process.

Note: This image by author was edited with Kleki.com, a free, easy image tool that works great on Chromebooks.

Note: This blog entry is written with tongue firmly in cheek. If the dry humor is too much, try some eggnog.

Wait, Bitmoji Avatars Are Grumps?

You may not have noticed it, but Bitmoji toxic positivity runs rampant in the app. Most of the avatars are smiling so much that it must be painful. But some of the Bitmojis are grumpy bears. That wouldn’t be a problem if Bitmoji could put in a mood adjustor. You know, a digital slider that ranges from angry to sad to happy to joyful. But unfortunately, Bitmoji lacks that feature (tweet a link to this blog entry to the @Bitmoji folks!).

Is this a case of toxic negativity in holiday settings? That’s the reverse of toxic positivity, defined below:

The excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state. across all situations. This positive has several results that deny or invalidate “authentic human emotional experience.”

The DSM definition (which I’ve fabricated) for Bitmoji toxic negativity might read like this:

The excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a sad, pessimistic state across holiday Bitmojis. This negativity denies, or invalidates, authentic use of certain Bitmojis. These certain Bitmojis, instead of evoking happy states, do the exact opposite.

Let’s explore some examples of this in the wonderful Bitmoji app.

Did You Know?

Toxic positivity is a real term, unlike the tongue-in-cheek “Bitmoji Toxic Negativity” I joke about in this blog entry. Be sure to learn more about this phenomenon through this curated list of articles.

Bitmoji Toxic Negativity

Earlier today, I had the chance to run across a sample greeting card some librarians had made. I shared it with my work colleagues and a few of them said, “Hey, that looks great. Why don’t we do that, too?”

With that in mind, I started looking through my Bitmoji app. A horrible observation quickly became evident: There were rampant examples of Bitmoji toxic negativity. Let’s take a look at some of the most prevalent ones.

Exhibit #1: The Angry Assembly Line Elf

Sherry at TCEA was working her way through her app and found the perfect elf. The elf, aside from its expression, is working hard at an assembly line making toys for children.

“You look like a grumpy elf! Don’t like your job, elf?” asked Peggy Reimers (@preimers). This means you cannot use this Bitmoji unless you want to imply you are unhappy with your job.

Exhibit #2: Sad Santa Picture

I don’t know about you, but many children experience Virtual Santa without a tear in their eye. Yet Bitmoji characterizes all Santa engagements as tearful opportunities.

These tear-filled Bitmojis reinforce Bitmoji’s toxic negativity. We don’t know why there are tears, only that this is a negative experience. As Bitmoji fanatics, it’s time we stood up for sad Bitmojis. More on how in a moment.

Exhibit #3: “I Don’t Love the Holidays”

This “I Don’t Love the Holidays” is an otherwise wonderful Bitmoji. It emotes the wonderful love many of us have for the holidays, but its use in positive ways is impossible. It’s clear that something is wrong.

Fix That Grumpy sELF

In my experience, it’s possible to turn that angry or sad elf into a happy one. (Ah, if we could only do this in real life with our teammates. Who wouldn’t want to see toxic positivity reign supreme in the work place? But Bitmoji prevents that with their grumpy avatars.)

To fix that, we’re going to rely on two powerful, free tools available to us all. They include Kleki, an image-editing website, as well as Remove.bg. I will show how you can use Kleki to re-make grumpy Bitmoji avatars into happy ones. You will also learn how to use the Remove.bg website to remove backgrounds and erase unwanted pixels.

Want to learn more about working with Bitmojis?

Register for the online, self-paced TCEA Bitmoji Educator course. Course developer, Lisa Marie Bennett, will guide you step-by-step to creating your Bitmoji classroom and more.

Steps to Fix the Bitmoji Avatar

Below are screenshots and a video that outline the short series of steps you need to follow. Note that you can use these steps to make a Bitmoji avatar happy or sad. Do what best reflects your psyche. Don’t let the Bitmoji designers determine your attitude this holiday season!

In this example, I’ll reconfigure my angry elf picture and replace the angry face with a happy one. Here’s my first effort working with a colleague’s avatar. Note that the elf hat is a trifle large.

Step #1: Get Your Desired Bitmoji Avatar

Using either the mobile Bitmoji app or the Chrome extension, find the Bitmoji you want. Save the Bitmoji to your computer (e.g. Mac, Windows, GNU/Linux, or Chromebook).

One easy way to do that is to send it to yourself via your text messaging app (e.g. Android’s Messages or iOS iMessage). Either app can be accessed via your computer. See how by clicking the links in the previous sentence. I rely on Signal, a more secure tool. I save Bitmoji avatars to “Notes to Self” in the Signal app on my phone and then get the picture from the Signal Desktop program. You can see what each looks like below:

Signal Mobile version:

Signal Desktop version:

Another way is to use the Google Photos app. Save the Bitmoji to your Camera Roll (iOS) or Gallery (Android), then let Google Photos make it available to you online.

Step #2: Remove the Background

Remove the background for your Bitmoji. This is important since it means you will be able to place it anywhere, such as a greeting card or landscape image. Simply go to the Remove.bg website and then upload your Bitmoji picture. Click the REMOVE BACKGROUND button and the process will take place automatically.

Step #3: Isolate the Image Elements

Isolate any portions of the image that are too difficult to edit. You will save those as individual images you can add to your updated Bitmoji. These elements may not be obvious at first. You can use Remove.bg’s erase/restore feature to get the job done:

In this example, it was these two items:

Some avatar heads or components may need to be rotated. Never fear, Kleki makes that possible as you can rotate specific elements in Kleki when you import them as layers.

What are image layers?

Layers are used in digital image editing to separate different elements of an image. A layer can be compared to a transparency on which imaging effects or images are applied and placed over or under an image. Today they are an integral feature of image editors (source: Wikipedia).

Step #4: Reassemble the Bitmoji Avatar

Now that you have the parts you need, you are going to reassemble the Bitmoji avatar in Kleki. If you are not familiar with the concept of layers, think of it as overlaying transparency sheets. These are transparent layers that allow you to move portions of an image around on the screen. These layers are independent of one another, yet when combined, create a new look. Most modern imaging programs have support for layers.

Watch this video for a walkthrough of the process from start to finish (about nine minutes long):

Step #5: Save the New Bitmoji Avatar

Now that you have re-assembled the Bitmoji avatar, you can save it to your computer and then drop it into a Google Slides if you want to use it for your Bitmoji classroom. Or you can put it on a holiday greeting card. The sky is the limit!

Reflect: How Did It Go?

Let’s take a moment to reflect on Reversing Your Bitmoji’s Toxic Negativity. What do you think? Was the process easy enough that you could do it for other Bitmoji avatars? Please share your reflections in the comments. And share your revised Bitmoji before and after pictures via Twitter. Be sure to use the #tcea #ToxicBitmoji hashtags.

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Created by author.

December 9, 2020 2 comments

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