For my final EdTech tutorial, I chose to check out Google Forms. I would like to do a creative writing unit in an English class about generative AI and creative writing. In order to gauge student familiarity if AI, as well as their initial thoughts on its usefulness and fairness relating to education and creative writing, I decided to create an anonymous Google Form for students to fill in at the beginning of the unit.
This is not only a great way to get an idea about where students are at, but can also serve as a jumping-off point for initial discussions in the class about AI.
I was able to play around with different fonts, imagery, and colour schemes to fit the “technology aesthetic” I deemed appropriate for the topic at hand. Additionally, the platform allowed me to utilize a variety of ways to gather responses: paragraph form, stars, and multiple choice, to name a few. Using multiple ways to collect this information within the Form can allow students to deeply communicate their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Today I experimented with Screencastify to do a tutorial on digital spacing charts for a dance class! It was really fun and easy to make, and considering that in this project students will need to use their devices and work individually, plus there are many steps, having a screen recording with audio that they can pause, play, and slow down as needed would be useful
Here is my tutorial:
One thing I learned about Screencastify is that you can also use your mouse to highlight things and circle them, essentially adding visual direction to the page. I chose not to implement this feature in my video after doing a trial run with it, because given that there is already quite a lot of graphics happening on the screen, it became a little overwhelming to watch back. Additionally, by not using those features, I was able to cut the video’s length in half (my initial run of the recording with the features implemented was over 30 minutes long).
Overall, I really like Screencastify for assignments that require students to complete digital work, and I will use it again in the future!
For my first tutorial, I chose to use Canva to make an “academic-style” poster. I say “academic-style” because I did not make a poster to share academic research of my own – rather, I used the style exemplified to share a few academic statistics alongside helpful tips for students surrounding a topic I am interested in: social media getting in the way of youth connecting in-person.
I began with a template that looked like this:
I chose this template primarily because I like the fonts – they are clean and easy to read, while not being boring – and some of the layout details, such as the general sub-sectioning of items. However, I decided to use cartoon illustrations rather than photos to make the poster more fun, and changed up the colours to be more eye-catching. Furthermore, as per the video tutorial’s suggestion, I put a big statistic in the middle with an illustration to suit the factoid in order to capture attention.
After gathering some insightful information and statistics regarding my topic, I brainstormed additional ideas to include. I used the left section to highlight some key information about dopamine and phone-use, as well as its addictive affects. However, I did not want it to seem like all social media use is bad, so just below this information I showed how scrolling is useful: content one likes = potential activities = opportunities to make friends in real life!
In the right column, I listed “Actionable Items” for students reading the poster. This is a term frequently found in self-help books and resources that I find particularly helpful, as rather than just labeling it as “steps” or “tips”, the user can engage in the items in whichever order makes sense for their needs, and choose not to engage in what does not suit them.
My final poster looks like this:
As someone who is pursuing an elective teachable (drama) that often has extracurricular opportunities for students, being able to not only use a platform like Canva to make posters to advertise the opportunities, but also to know how to best capture the attention of an individual walking past, is invaluable. From this tutorial, I have gained useful information relating to attention-span and attention-grabbing that I will be able to bring to my career as a teacher.Â
