Katie's Musings Volume #2

I have two favorite design tools: Canva for Education and Adobe Spark, both of which are constantly adding new features. This week I will share some of them and also share some summer learning opportunties you can do between pool time and fireside.

Color choice is an important accessibility consideration when making graphics. With Adobe color accessibility tool you can check for two things. 1) Color Contrast and 2) Color Blind Safe. Whenever you create something jump over to this tool plug in your hex code colors and check to make sure your creation is accessible. I have added this tool to my Wakelet collection of design tools.

Also in Adobe Spark you can now create shared libraries of content you can share with students so they can take a page/post/video you have started and remix or revise it into something of their own. This can be especially helpful in giving students a template you want them to begin from, it provides a nice scaffold that some students need when getting started with digital design. For more watch the video I created below.

The first project is that you can create digital stickers from any photo. Bitmoji’s are so 2018, you can use Canva to take a photo of yourself and turn it into a sticker using the new shadow feature. Watch this video to learn how. This is almost as good as making a GIF of yourself.

The second project I wanted to share is an app smash between Canva and Genially. In this project I care a course or project roadmap. As part of a good Universal Design for Learning practice is creating interactive models to help students direct their own learning. Using this template you can create the visual roadmap in Canva, then download that image to use as the background image in an interactive Genially. See the video below for all the details.

If you make either of these projects I would love to see the results! Share them via email or with me on twitter.

Looking for some summer learning? I have curated a Wakelet of Free/Cheap EdTech events below. Have something that should be added? Please share it with me.

If you are not listening to Fonz Mendoza’s My EdTech Life podcast what are you waiting for? I was fortunate enough to be a guest back in May. The next episode streams live tomorrow, Saturday June 19th

Georgina Dean, a fellow member of the Adobe Creative Educator Crew, runs a Twitter Space on Sundays called “Spark Sunday”, a great conversation worth checking out.

I’ll be presenting at Inspire Loudon and the Mobile Learning Conference.