Guest post by Barbara Bray, @bbray27 prior post on her site.

image from pexels

The world continues to live with the pandemic. Health professionals are saying it may evolve into an endemic similar to the flu and colds, yet there are still questions. Schools have opened thinking that things can go back to somewhat of a “normal” by wearing masks. It’s difficult to consider what will be our “normal.” I’m sure teachers and parents are wondering how safe are our schools? There is talk about “learning loss” but, really, there are deeper issues since the whole world is impacted. Teachers have reached out to me and each other asking for help. They need support, flexible time, and strategies on how to meet each learner who might have experienced trauma or mental health issues. Teachers need help to manage their own stress. With everything on their plates, teachers are overwhelmed and burning out. Families are confused and are concerned about their children and if they will be going to school the next day. 

When kids are struggling, families are probably struggling also. What if we pause and take time to focus on “relationships” first? 

Let’s do the HEART work before the HARD work. ~Dr. Basil Marin

All learners including teachers are unique and have stories and experiences to share. Let’s learn about each other and how resilient we have become through the pandemic. Let’s do the HEART work and “whatever it takes” for our kids. Here are several ways to begin:

Morning Meetings

A compassionate classroom builds a responsive community. A morning meeting is an engaging way to start each day and foster a sense of belonging and caring. 

• The teacher can start off the year by defining empathy and modeling how to do active listening. 
• Invite learners to volunteer to lead a mindfulness activity on different mornings to calm thoughts. One idea is to breathe deeply while tracing the fingers on one hand.
• Each morning learners can sit or stand in a circle and greet each other. 
• The teacher can invite learners to pair with another especially any they haven’t shared with before. 
  • Have pairs listen deeply to each other for two minutes each about something that happened to them recently. 
  • Ask the learners to be kind when the other person is talking and listen without judgment. 
  • The teacher then brings everyone back and asks if someone would like to share the story of their partner if they have permission to share their story.
• After the morning meeting, consider asking a question for learners to think about during the day. One question could be…
  • “How will you reflect on your learning today?”

About You Prompts

Ask learners to choose a prompt to write about themselves and then to share it with another learner. Invite them to listen to each other and then give feedback using “I notice, I wonder” to each other. Here are a few prompts to possibly use:

• What makes you feel like you have a sense of belonging here? 
• What’s one thing you wish people knew about you?
• What’s your biggest dream in life?
• What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Why did you like it?
• Describe something that you learned when times were difficult.
• What makes you feel happy? 

All About Me

All of us have stories. Each story is unique. Younger children can tell their stories through pictures. 

• Ask learners to draw pictures of themselves, their names, their families, what they are interested in if they have siblings and pets, favorite food, colors, how they play, and anything else they would love to share. 
• Invite them to pair with another child and share their stories by explaining why they chose the pictures they drew.
• Save what they drew to come back to later and update. 
• When they are ready, invite them to post their stories with pictures to the sharing wall which could be in the classroom or on a website.

Portfolios

All learners can tell their stories by capturing moments of their lives through pictures, videos, reflections, examples, and evidence of learning. 

• Encourage them to start a page as an overview of their background, journey, and story. 
• Empower them to believe that any picture, video, or media they create is part of their story and to add to a folder.
• Model how a portfolio can represent who you are and how you are learning by creating your own portfolio as an example. 
• Demonstrate how learners can create a website or page on your website to share their portfolios.
• Have learners create a passion project and share the process and evidence in the portfolio with others. 

Check out what Michael Mohammad shared about portfolios with his students in Podcast Episode #25.

Reflections

Reflecting on the purpose of the lesson/activity with learners builds ownership of the learning. Encourage reflections throughout the learning process.

• Ask learners to notice the learning as they learn by reflecting on these questions:

• Did I understand what I was asked to do?
• How did I figure out what to do to learn?
• What emotions did I feel during learning?
• What questions do I still have about this lesson/activity?

• Invite learners to reflect on the learning process with another student on what worked, what didn’t work for them, and why.
• Reflect with the class to share their reflections with the class using any of these prompts.

• How did you take a risk in your learning today?
• Were there any new skills that you learned today?
• What did you learn that you want to do differently next lesson/activity?

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Above are just a few ideas to get to know your learners while building relationships. Consider how the pandemic has impacted learners? Think about yourself and how the pandemic has impacted you. We have to talk authentically with our kids, parents, and colleagues. The pandemic is still here so there continues to be anxiety, increasing levels of self-doubt, and with many of us, a lack of self-confidence. 

Now is the time to do “whatever it takes” to get to know your kids, who they really are, what concerns they might have, and how they are coping with adversity. We need to be there for our kids and each other. We need to model what it means to be kind, positive, caring, and a collaborative team player. We are better together. 

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Barbara writes more about “whatever it takes” in her book, Define Your WHY. Check what is in each chapter on this page or click on the image of the book for resources, questions, and links.

About the author

Barbara Bray

Barbara Bray is a Creative Learning Strategist and owner/founder of Computer Strategies, LLC with its divisions, Rethinking Learning and My eCoach (my-ecoach.com) where she shares her resources, stories, and more about learning and life. Barbara is the host of the Rethinking Learning Podcast where she has conversations on learning and reflections with inspirational educators, thought leaders, and influencers! She is the co-author of Make Learning Personal and How to Personalize Learning. Barbara is the author is Define Your WHY that is all about owning your story so you live and learn on purpose.

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Black History Month: Learning with Buncee and PebbleGo!

Since 1976, we have recognized and celebrated Black History Month in February. For the past forty-six years, February has been the month that celebrates the achievements and contributions of Black Americans. In 1915, Carter G. Woodson, a historian along with Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) to promote the inclusion of Black Americans in discussions and in society.

Initially celebrated as Black History week during the second week of February, it was later changed by President Gerald Ford in 1976 to be recognized as Black History month.

Each year there is a theme chosen and for 2022, the theme is “Black Health and Wellness.” The focus is on learning about practices, initiatives and methods that Black communities have used for staying well and recognizing the impact of the leaders and changemakers in fields such as education and science.

As educators, it is important that we find resources that will help students to understand its importance, along with the importance of Black history and culture. Once students have time to explore and learn, they need opportunities to create and share that learning. Buncee and PebbleGo Create make this a more meaningful and engaging learning experience for students.

Ideas for Black History Month

With Buncee, there are so many templates available and lessons to choose from in the Ideas Lab to get started. When it comes to tech, having resources like this that enable educators to create and share materials with students makes it easier to get started and is also a fun learning experience with students.

Depending on the grade level or specific content area, there are a lot of options to choose from. Perhaps with older students, implementing something like inquiry or project-based learning (PBL) will foster the development of higher order thinking skills and the power of choice in what to research and learn more about. By giving them the chance to explore a topic of interest, it not only builds their content knowledge, but promotes the development of essential SEL skills too. As they work through the process, they can either choose from the templates available for Black History Month or start from a blank template and create something more authentic and personalized to their specific interests and needs.

Guide students as they begin their research:

Identify their topic of interest

Conduct research

Decide on and begin creating a Buncee

Leverage the multimedia options in Buncee to share their learning

Publish and share their Buncee with classmates

Younger students using PebbleGo can explore the resources to read biographies about African American history makers and then create a Buncee to share their learning. PebbleGo provides all of the materials that teachers need to get started using their lesson plans.

When it comes to creating, students can select from the templates available and create a Buncee representing a person or event and share to a class Buncee Board, which takes learning to a new level. Being able to share your creations and see what classmates are creating builds social awareness and understanding of different perspectives. Using the Buncee Board promotes collaboration in a digital space, helping students to develop many of the essential skills for the future and also to feel connected, especially if we are in virtual learning environments. Here is a sample Buncee Board with a few ideas!

Ideas to bring to your classroom

Some ideas are to focus on specific events or people who have played an important role in history. Choose individuals that represent different areas of interest for students such as activists, artists, musicians, politicians, scientists, writers or have them select key events in history. For example, students can choose the template for the Underground Railroad where students can learn about what it was, who traveled on it, and important people like Harriet Tubman who were involved.

Another idea is to have students select a famous African American based on their personal interests and create a Buncee to highlight key facts about their life and impact. Students can then reflect on what they have learned and share their thoughts using audio or a video right within their Buncee.

For promoting the development of writing and critical thinking skills, using a template such as the Harlem Renaissance one will provide students with guidance to learn about it in their own way, to reflect on what they learned while building communication and literacy skills in more authentic ways through Buncee. Students can then select a writer that they learn about and continue to explore. An added idea is to push their thinking by adding another component to the lesson such as changing the time period, or asking what they think the writer would choose as a topic today. There are a lot of possibilities for sparking curiosity and engaging students in truly meaningful and purposeful learning.

There are many more options. Students can create a timeline and provide details, images, audio or even video to recreate the events that happened. Designing an About Me and portraying a person they choose to study. Another idea is to study the work and accomplishments of famous historical figures and design a digital`portfolio to represent this person’s contributions to society.

To best prepare our students, it is important to provide them with opportunities to share their ideas, engage in inquiry based learning, and explore different resources as they build their self- and social-awareness. By sharing their work with others, they focus on building social awareness and relationship skills during the learning process and develop a greater cultural understanding of others and their experiences. With Buncee, we have more choices available that will engage students in meaningful learning during Black History Month.

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Sponsored post, Opinions are my own

Since March of 2020, educators around the world have been working to improve their practices when it comes to staying connected with families. A big concern during school closures was effectively and consistently communicating with students and families and finding the right tools without overwhelming everyone.

So why does consistent communication matter? When it comes to family engagement, research shows that it is the most accurate predictor of student success. During the past school year, as we experienced transitioning learning environments, fostering a home-to-school connection was essential. With students shifting between virtual, hybrid, and in-person instruction, having a consistent way to communicate and provide support for our learners was critical. As a result of these learning environment transitions, students experienced varying degrees of what has been referred to as “learning loss.” Finding ways to address learning loss or gaps in learning have become highly popular topics in education. In a study released by Mackenzie, it was estimated that an average student lost nine months of math instruction, with other content areas also seeing an impact on students’ overall academic achievement. While student learning was adversely impacted in some ways, we need to focus on the positives that we experienced as a result. What did we gain?

Importance of family engagement

Because of heightened awareness of the need for consistent communication and having a consistent and reliable space to obtain information and resources, educators and families connected and supported one another during this challenging time. Educators found a variety of tools to facilitate communications, provide information, and share class resources with families. As a way to prevent learning loss / support the learning process, educators can select the right tools to engage families in learning and help them to support their students at home, and to strengthen the home to school community. Research shared talked about learning gaps as a result of school closures and the changes in instructional space and time. So the question is “how can teachers help students with areas where they need extra support? Using a tool that can help foster the home to school connection is essential so that teachers can share learning as it’s happening, provide families with information about student progress, identify students that may need some additional support, and focus on promoting student wellness and setting students up for success.

Choosing the right tool

To connect home to school, there were many apps being used by teachers and the use of so many technology tools is amplified with multiple school-aged children in the family. Apps that helped to support students as they learned while at home, to exchange information with families, to complete clerical tasks such as attendance, grading, and more. In some cases, educators were using a different app for each task. Some schools use an attendance tool, an online gradebook, a messaging app, various assessment tools, and perhaps even an LMS or class website. In addition to these school-wide uses, there are many other ways that teachers are using technology. With so much information being exchanged, it’s important to have a reliable, consistent, and centralized space for families and educators to connect. An all-in-one space that enables many of these different tasks to be done helps to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed that can happen with the use of so much technology.

When used with schools, Bloomz facilitates district and schoolwide communication. Bloomz is an easy-to-use, modern, social-like, unified School-to-Home communication system to reach all stakeholders in one place providing the control, security, oversight and configurability you need! It enables schools to streamline a lot of the other apps and tools they might be using. Research from Project Tomorrow reported that 88% of administrators saw a positive impact from communicating with families via social media, while 66% of parents preferred emails or phone messages as communication. With Bloomz, schools and families can communicate in ways that meet their preferences. Bloomz is focused on individual parent needs and provides a choice for how they get their information (SMS text, email, and voice) in an easy-to-navigate platform that is fully available on any device.

What makes Bloomz different

Bloomz is a parent communication app that provides multiple school apps in an all-in-one centralized platform which helps to improve communication, engage parents and families, and save time by using less to achieve more. With features such as messaging, student assignments and portfolios, behavior management, a calendar, parent-teacher conference sign-ups and volunteer signups, families can be fully engaged in the learning experience of their child. To further engage families in daily learning, teachers can send photos and videos of activities and school events as they are happening which keeps parents informed in real-time. Bloomz also offers language translation in more than 100 languages. Teachers can use the calendar to quickly create an event that includes permission slips, sign-up sheets, and have the ability to track RSVPs or force smart reminders.

So why should schools choose Bloomz?

Bloomz is a teacher tool that integrates features such as a messaging app, calendar, event planner, and more into one safe and user-friendly platform. Bloomz enables educators and parents to communicate through messaging instantly, privately, and as often as needed. It can be used at the classroom level and by administrators at the school or district level to facilitate communication with teachers, staff, and parents, whether individually, in groups or to the entire school/district. The Bloomz administrator dashboard centralizes essential information such as contactability, deliverability, attendance, and behavior with reports to focus on what matters most.

At the school and district level, being able to provide everything that students and families need through a comprehensive program and in a manner that parents and families choose is important. The entire school community benefits by having a consistent and efficient program in place that meets the needs and preferences of each of its members. Check out Bloomz to build your home-to-school community.

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Sponsored by Genially, Opinions are my own

Last year I had the chance to check out Genially with my Spanish classes and was amazed at what they created! There are so many digital tools available for educators to use in the classroom that knowing where to start can be difficult. When it comes to tools like Genially, we just need to provide enough to get our students started and then take it as an opportunity to learn with, and more importantly, from them.

Giving students choices in how to share their learning is important. With presentation tools that offer a variety of media options and choices in templates, we can get started right away in our classrooms without losing much time at all. As a language teacher, I’m always looking for more authentic and meaningful ways for my students to build their language skills in a way that meets their interests and needs while also fostering the development of essential SEL skills that will best prepare them for the future.

Bringing in technology and providing time for students to explore the options and create on their own helps to spark curiosity for learning and boosts student engagement. An added bonus is that we can learn more about our students from the personalized and unique choices they make as they create. I learned a lot from my students’ presentations and they gave me some new ideas to try using Genially!

What is Genially?

Genially is a versatile and interactive platform that can be used to create so many different projects and multimedia presentations. For just a few ideas, use it for creating a class website, making choice boards, school flyers, interactive images, digital portfolios, class and school newsletters, multimedia presentations, storybooks and more! You can even upload one of your PowerPoints and turn it into an interactive Genially presentation with sound, hyperlinks, and social media buttons. Want to boost student engagement? Try some of the templates for bringing gamification to your classroom through digital breakouts and escape rooms! Whether you start from scratch or choose from a ready-made template, Genially has something for everyone! And it’s free to use and has premium options to choose from too.

Creating is fun!

Last year, I first made my own presentation by choosing from the many Genially templates available, all of which are visually engaging and of course, make it easy to get started right away. In Spanish III, students were learning about narrating in the past tense, which can be difficult. I had used some fairy tales and fables they were familiar with to help them to understand the differences. Then I wrote a quick story and used Genially to bring it to life.

Rather than show students exactly how to use Genially, I shared my project with them and let them explore on their own. Genially is easy to use and it gives students the chance to build their digital skills and create a more authentic and meaningful project. Once they wrote their own stories, they had fun bringing their characters and stories to life through animations, audio, colorful backgrounds, different characters, GIFS, and more!

Here is one of their creations using many of the Genially features. Being able to share it with classmates and use audio boosted their engagement and definitely enhanced their learning experiences with using the past tense for narration!

Create a more interactive lesson for students by adding icons to each page or even hot spots, which are similar to some other tools out there like Round.me or even Thinglink.

What I noticed right away is how Genially really enables you to bring your presentation to life. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on it, adding a variety of visual effects with transitions between the pages of your presentation. You can add videos, social media links, or even 3D images. I love that students and educators can find exactly what they need to create something amazing with Genially.

For anywhere learning

Want to promote collaboration? No problem. You can collaborate with other educators or give students the space to work together on a project. When students collaborate, it promotes the development of essential SEL skills such as self- awareness, social awareness and relationships building. Especially as we’re working in transitioning learning environments, having a space for students to collaborate and create together makes a difference. Choose from more than 1200 templates in 12 different categories, with hundreds of additional resources available including figures, icons, illustrations, figures, and so much more. The fun part is learning from your students as they create!

The possibilities

There are so many ways to use a tool like Genially. When I think about the possibilities for my classroom, my students create many types of content throughout the year. Whether they make infographics, introduce themselves in an About Me or design a resume, create a health poster, make a family scrapbook or create a brochure for a school club, these are just a few of the ideas we can bring into our classrooms.

Here are six more ideas to start with:

• Digital Portfolios – great for students for building SEL!
• Gamification – choose from templates for digital breakouts, or try Jumanlly!
• Infographics – newsletters and brochures
• Interactive Lessons – boost student engagement! Check out this example
• Quizzes – interactive quizzes! Check out this one on Salvador Dalí
• Timelines – interactive timelines to narrate events, a student’s life experiences, retell a story or correctly sequence events. Here is a great example

Students can create a brochure, newsletter or a travel ad and use templates available to get started right away. My Spanish I students were creating menus and loved checking out the possibilities for adding in images of food and places to their projects. Students loved creating with Genially and being able to include so much in one beautiful and animated presentation. I love that I have these new resources to share with students and other educators.

Explore this template here!

If you are looking for ideas, start with the templates on the Genially site. I have been planning to have students create announcements, timelines or anything that they choose to design as a way to share their learning.

**Interested in writing a guest blog for my site? Would love to share your ideas! Submit your post here. Looking for a new book to read? Find these available at bit.ly/Pothbooks

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Guest post by @IleneWinokur

School experiences can have a long-lasting effect on how we perceive ourselves and our capabilities/lack of. 

Today’s post delves into self-concept or what I call self-belonging and how we can attain it and support others, like our students, to find themselves and their sense of self-belonging. 

Graduation speeches are usually upbeat and celebrate the time a student spends in the years leading up to their final year before adulthood. It was a bit different at my son’s high school graduation in 2005. Ahmed, my son’s friend, and the class salutatorian*gave a moving speech to his fellow classmates filled with this message:  We are so much more than our grades, our SAT scores, and the rank of the universities that accepted us. His speech was a response to the negative beliefs about his entire senior class, the largest in the school’s 40-year history; 132 students. From the time they were in the elementary grades at this K-12 school, the whole class was labeled troublemakers, even the well-behaved, achieving students, and all were regularly disciplined. Even in their final year, discipline meant the loss of privileges such as having their own space to get together between classes and being allowed to move around campus with less supervision than lower grade levels.   

Ahmed’s speech left me speechless and sad. I still have a copy of it to remind me of what schools shouldn’t do to students. Students shouldn’t be labeled, shamed, or punished for poor behavior without someone first trying to find the root cause of the problem. But that’s exactly what happened. In 7th grade, my son received a “D” grade on a literature response essay. My son is fluent in English, and an avid reader of books much higher than his reading level. However, when I began asking him questions about the book he used for his essay, his answers showed me that he only had a superficial understanding of the plot, characters, etc. I was shocked and made an appointment to see his teacher whose excuse for not exposing my son to a deeper analysis of the book was the poor level of reading comprehension by the majority of his classmates and a lack of English language support in middle school. 

My son and many of his classmates, including the salutatorian, walked into college with a deficit mindset due to low self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-confidence, and self-worth based on hearing they “weren’t able to…”, “they lacked X skills,” throughout their school years. It’s difficult to continue doing your best when all that’s recognized is your worst. And while I tried to support him and do my best as a parent to minimize the effects of the constant negativity, my son, now in his mid-30s and working at a demanding job that appreciates his skills, has begun to believe in his capabilities and gain a sense of self-belonging. 

It’s tough growing up without a positive self-concept. I spent the first 35 years of my life doubting myself, second-guessing my decisions, and wondering if people liked me or were just saying they liked me. It wasn’t until I found my sense of self-belonging in my mid-30s that I finally stopped my negative self-talk and started to believe in myself. In elementary school, I remember having to suck on cinnamon candy to stop my stomach from feeling queasy because I was so anxious about failing or making a mistake. In high school, I couldn’t wait to graduate, so I enrolled in summer school to have enough credits to graduate a year early. There are two times I remember feeling like a failure.  In 7th grade, I received a “C” grade for an art project I worked on for many hours and was so proud of, and it convinced me I was not creative. The second memory I have is failing my first test in biology class in 10th grade. That reinforced my belief that I was unable to learn science. I was devastated and thought I’d have to repeat the subject. Since I already doubted my abilities, my self-efficacy in science and art, those grades reinforced my self-concept and negatively impacted my sense of self-belonging.. 

So, what is self-belonging? According to Healthline, “[y]our sense of self refers to your perception of the collection of characteristics that define you. Personality traits, abilities, likes and dislikes, your belief system or moral code, and the things that motivate you — these all contribute to self-image or your unique identity as a person.” (https://www.healthline.com/health/sense-of-self) This is what I refer to as “self-belonging”. It’s essential to our well-being because, without it, we doubt if people really like us for our authentic selves, we question each decision we make, and it negatively impacts our personal and professional relationships. So how can we develop self-belonging? Here are a few tips from my own experience:

1. Be mindful and intentional about choosing to build your sense of self-belonging. Make a commitment to spending time and effort at it.
2. Build time into your schedule for daily reflection and use that time to make mental or physical lists of your personal and professional accomplishments, your strengths, and what obstacles you’ve overcome. 
3. Find someone you trust and who values you to talk about the list from #2.
4. Celebrate your accomplishments (see #2) whenever you begin to doubt yourself. Make this a habit.
5. Don’t feel shy about sharing your accomplishments with others, even strangers. Learn to feel good about “bragging” to others. This will eliminate any thoughts you might have of “impostor syndrome”. 
6. Surround yourself with people who value you for your authentic self and don’t insist that you “fit in”. 
7. Practice giving yourself grace; allowing yourself to make mistakes because you’re human and valuing those mistakes or failures as opportunities to learn and grow. 

Self-belonging plays an important role in how students navigate school. Without a sense of belonging, learning becomes secondary to what happened at home, or how others are treating me. If I don’t have self-esteem or self-efficacy, I won’t try to move out of my comfort zone because I’ll be worried about failing in front of my peers and my teacher. According to a recent interview (Allen and Gray, 2021) of Emeritus Professors and authors of the groundbreaking 1995 paper about belonging and human motivation, Baumeister and Leary,   “There has been much discussion about whether self-esteem is important for education, and self-esteem is substantially (though probably not entirely) rooted in belongingness.” Baumeister notes, “belongingness remains an important driving force. If we can explore new ways to harness that motivation to strive for superior academic achievement, it would benefit plenty of individuals as well as society as a whole.” Leary emphasizes the point when he states, “belonging plays an important role in the degree to which students are motivated to go to school in the first place.” 

How can we help students cultivate a healthy self-concept and a sense of self-belonging? We can plan lessons that encourage independent thought and action, that give them choices to explore, be curious, and learn about the world around them. Students who need a bit more guidance along the way should be able to choose topics that interest them and books that represent them. We can build their self-confidence by recognizing their accomplishments and giving them focused feedback about the areas they are still developing while supporting them along the way. 

My life is so much happier and healthier because I found my sense of self-belonging and I wonder how much better my life would have been if I had found it before I was 35 years old. Think of how much better school and life would be if we could find our self-belonging when we’re younger. 

Coming this fall: Journeys to Belonging: Pathways to Well-Being 

A book about my journey to belonging in two very different parts of the world and how important a sense of self-belonging is for having healthy relationships with others, personal and professional. 

Find out more about self-belonging on my website: https://journeys2belonging.com Be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter which will be filled with strategies and ideas for cultivating a sense of belonging in your classroom and your school. 

*graduating student with the second-highest grade point average

Related studies:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.411.3391&rep=rep1&type=pdf

ttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/55938/20174_ftp.pdf?sequence=1

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/am-pdf/10.1111/cdev.12802

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I love sharing ideas and resources when I learn about new features and how we can bring them into our classrooms and offer more to our students. There have been a lot of great updates to some of the digital tools available for use in education. When it comes to promoting creativity and collaboration, Book Creator has added awesome new features and joined forces with some other tools to further empower students and teachers in the classroom.

Recently, Canva integrated with Book Creator which means now students can leverage the power of both these tools to create anything they want! App smashing in the classroom is a great way to boost student engagement, spark creativity and amplify student voice.

Here are some ideas that can be used in any classroom!

Books! Have students create a book cover based on a book that they read and then use the different features and fun apps in Book Creator to really bring the book to life. Canva offers ready to use templates and when app smashed with Book Creator, it’s easy to create and publish visually engaging in no time at all. Teachers and students can quickly add animations, search from the thousands of images, different fonts, videos even to add into your book

Lessons! Book Creator is also a great tool for creating a lesson, adding in links and other visuals to boost student engagement in learning. Book Creator also offers different accessibility features such as the voice search as well as the interactive reader of Book Creator. Through the reader, means students can have the books read to them in any language. There’s also the option to have where it’s highlighted while the book is being read.

Writing prompts! Use Giphy to create a book full of GIFS and have students write about what they see, create a story, describe something in greater detail. There are many possibilities with using GIPHY to promote writing skills and creativity!

More choices for creating!

Now with the App store, you can create with Bitmoji (teachers only because of Snapchat), Giphy, Canva, a sticker pack, 3D models, Google maps, Google Drive and Sketchfab. All you need to do is go to the Teacher Dashboard to find the Apps tab and choose the app that you want to enable in your account.

My favorite: Sketchfab

Now that Book Creator is integrated with Sketchfab, students can access a library full of 3D models that they can place directly into Book Creator! For educators looking to teach students about augmented or virtual reality, using the Sketchfab app with Book Creator is definitely the way to go!

For anyone who doesn’t know, Sketchfab enables you to display 3D models on the web which can be viewed on any browser, or by using a virtual reality headset. Using WebXR technologies, creating in 3D and being able to interact with these objects helps to further engage students in learning, and spark curiosity and creativity in their designs. There are so many ways to use 3D models for any grade level or content area. Some ideas are to have students build a replica of a place they are learning about, or create a 3D model of an animal or object and place it right into their book. For classes where students benefit by being able to interact with the object such as in math with shapes, or with biology or learning about the heart for example, adding in these objects takes their learning to a whole new level.

When the book is ready, everyone can look at it by rotating it 360 degrees or, many of the models can be viewed in augmented reality on mobile devices or computers or even in virtual reality by using a headset!

There are so many ways to have students create using Book Creator and with these new apps, it better meets student interests and needs. When it comes to starting with new digital tools, it’s always a plus if you have templates available to choose from or resources that you can bring in to use as teachable materials in your classroom. Each of the new apps available through Book Creator provide even more ways for students to create and engage in authentic and meaningful learning fueled by choice. When we create learning experiences that will more meaningfully engage students with the content, while also aiming to move them from consumers to creators, it increases student engagement and amplifies student achievement.

To learn more, join in the webinars that the Book Creator team offers throughout the month. To learn more about using Book Creator with Canva, join on Saturday February 12th bit.ly/BCCanva where you’ll get to see what this new integration looks like and how to combine these apps to make some amazing creations! Walk away with some ideas and some activities to try in your classroom!

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