Musings Over Milk - Issue #6

The focus for the first weeks of school should be on building relationships. This year, this will be more important forever, especially for those students who have been virtual since the pandemic began.

This week I’ll share some ideas for creative projects you can bring into your classroom during the first weeks of school to introduce students to you, each other, and some of the innovative tools you can use this year.

This selfie project might be a better entry point than a video for students. They can choose whatever photo they like of themselves and make a creation from it. In this Adobe Spark post, I uploaded a picture, then added 3 design assets “about me.” After creating, students can download their creations and share them with the class on a Padlet or Canvas Discussion board to introduce themselves.

Al Thomas (educopilot) shares his variation of a selfie project below. He shares his overlay template here.

I recommend a signature card with your image to help build a personal connection with parents when communicating via email. Use any of the business card templates in Canva to get started. Design-wise I recommend sticking to a white background and downloading it as a transparent PNG file. This way, it will meld seamlessly into the page if the person uses light or dark mode on their computer. I also recommend looking at what the image looks like with a white or black background to get an idea of how it would look in light and dark mode.

Signature cards are also something you can have students create to teach them to become professional communicators. Especially in the first weeks of school, it can be so helpful to have a student put a face to their name when corresponding with teachers.

Here is mine as an example; each has the exact image/text, just one with a white and one with a black background to visualize the different user experiences.

Love them or hate them icebreakers are a thing. Some kids don’t want to talk, especially on day 1, but will be glad to share about themselves on a backchannel like Jamboard. Here are some icebreaker jamboard templates to get you started this year (probably geared towards HS).

I made the background images in Canva. To make your own choose the presentation template. When you add elements, use the filter to search for animated items, and then download each slide as a GIF to keep the animation. Then upload the GIF as the background to your jamboard.

I tweeted about the process back in December, and you can see all the how-to steps in the tweet thread below:

Have students create an “About me” book to add to the class library. This will introduce them to Book Creator, and all the accessibility features available for them to use when they create.

This resource from CanvasQueen is 5 stars!

Come learn how to use Adobe Spark in your classroom and how to use it in Canvas LMS.

Like the content of this newsletter? If you would like to leave a tip or buy me a slurpee I am @katiefielding on venmo.