#googleslides – The Curious Creator

“The lack of organization, that we almost all suffered, got me thinking about templates to make the distance learning journey a bit easier.”

Paula is not an educator and does not work in design. She works in a financial department and began Slidesmania to satisfy her creative side after crunching numbers from 9 to 6. Little did she know how much the educational community would welcome her!

“At first, almost every template was for general use, but once I jumped into the Twitterverse and started interacting with so many amazing educators from all over the world, SlidesMania began turning and I started working on templates for education. The ultimate push was given by the pandemic, and seeing myself working remotely for my day job, and having my daughter learning from home at the same time. The lack of organization, that we almost all suffered, got me thinking on templates to make the distance learning journey a bit easier. And the planners were born, along the choice boards, and all the interactive templates.”

I think we can all relate to Paula’s words describing the last several months. I was struck with a profound appreciation for her abundant creativity, support of educators, and attractive templates in a straight-forward, user-friendly forum. Planners, choice boards, interactive games…this is a teacher’s dream. One week with the Digital Notebook with Sections and I feel like my thoughts and plans for the coming year are already more organized.

Paula provides simple as well as more adventurous styles of templates, pleasing anyone’s tastes. Her website makes it easy to find exactly what you need, categorized under “Business,” “Education,” “Formal,” “Fun,” “Simple,” and “Colors.” She also provides directions in her posts, videos, and on the actual templates. For example, she advises against adding your own slides in the Digital Notebook with Sections and instead duplicating her slides so you do not have to add links. Take her advice! She has thought through every angle.

By Educators, For Educators

The last menu that you’ll see on her site is “By Edu for Edu,” with templates submitted by teachers, varying from planners to vocabulary organizers. Not only is Paula taking requests for templates to create, she is bringing teachers’ templates to her stage, too.

Paula humbly admits that SlidesMania largely fulfills her creative side but, after many donation requests, she set up a Buy Me a Coffee (SlidesMania) account. As a simple thank you, it’s the least we could do as a token of appreciation!

Until next time…

My department chair, Karen Knight, and I were discussing assignments for our remote learning experience that could potentially extend through the end of the year. “I want to give them a memory, Padrah. I don’t want to assign them 150 questions that won’t mean anything to them later.”

Exactly.

Karen proposed an idea that I absolutely love and will adopt for my classes in the coming weeks. Her students will be creating a scrapbook about their lives and the world during this global pandemic. The project builds upon itself with new themes or chapters for each week, with flexible expectations of responses written in the target language. Here is a breakdown of themes we brainstormed:

Week 1 – Current events headlines: Students gather current events articles and explain and summarize COVID-19, how it started and has evolved over the weeks. Students could elaborate on how it has specifically affected their community.

Week 2 – Family, activities, and the “New Normal”: Ask students to gather pictures and tell about their family. What are their ages? Jobs? Do they no longer work or work from home because of the pandemic? Most importantly, have your students discuss what their lives are from day-to-day now that they are at home. Have they been on more walks or spent more time with family?

Week 3 – A little humor: The memes, the GIFs, the videos of what people are doing to pass their time during stay-at-home orders are all pulling everyone through this with a smile. Have students recreate their favorites in the target language.

Week 4 – Twenty years from now…: What do students think the world will look like post-pandemic? Will we be more prepared and learn from this experience? Many schools and businesses have had to alter their ways. Will there be an overhaul to how we operate?

Week 5 – Reflection: Give your students an opportunity to express how they are feeling during this time and how it has impacted their lives. I would strongly encourage different mediums in which the students could present. Some are more comfortable with written or spoken words. For others, a drawn picture alleviates the pressure of speaking. Give an outline of reflection questions that can guide the students.

Presentation styles: There are various presentation options that a student can choose from for his or her final product. While we are living by the motto of “Keep it simple” in this teaching era, I believe that the more options you present, the better. Students only need to choose one, but by giving them alternatives, it accounts for their learning style preference as well as resources available to them. I could not possibly list all the resources available but here is a start:

Paper is always an option. Karen Knight proposed to the other Spanish teachers to accept this project at the beginning of next school year for a grade or extra credit.

Flipgrid presents a user-friendly video option. Even if students have a hard copy of their scrapbook, they could bring it to life by narrating it in a video.

Wakelet allows for beautiful digital storytelling, easily allowing students to add current events headlines as well as paragraphs with their own commentary and reflections.

Book Creator, Storyboard That, StoryJumper, Adobe Spark are other creative outlets for digital storytelling.

Google Slides can include text, pictures, videos, and be customized to the student’s taste.

Handwritten, recorded on video, collected into a digital format…no matter which option your student chooses, you gave them choice. Most importantly, though, you gave them a memory.

Tag: #googleslides

Tech Tool Highlight #11: SlidesMania

“The lack of organization, that we almost all suffered, got me thinking about templates to make the distance learning journey a bit easier.”

By Educators, For Educators

Marker Mic Drop #5: Karen Knight, Spanish Teacher and LOTE Department Chair