Bloom into EdTech: The Blog

I really want to take a moment {a non-endorsed, free speaking moment} and say how much in love I am with Canva . I seriously use it for everything. From making advertisements, newsletters and brochures for my school (both as an educator and with the students) - to using it with my blog and Web design. Honestly, if you are new to Canva, it definitely warrants a look and see. Below is a tutorial that I have written for an upcoming professional development. Please feel free to grab a copy for your self! Link to GDoc. Preview of Tutorial:

I am so excited to announce that I have been officially accepted as a Google Certified Trainer! I was even going to write a speech for this moment, but there no words that will scream how excited I actually am! {I am just kidding about the speech part....maybe.} How did I get started? How did I end up here? I sat down a few months ago and generated a five year plan for myself. I posed the question: Who do I want to be com e? Since then, I generated a list of items I want to accomplish to become the person that I envision to be five years from now. Among the list of accomplishments are: developing my leadership skills continue to educate myself and grow in the field of emerging media obtain a series of certifications to valid my love for educational technology The list above is of course only a snippet of what I desire. Since I sat down and envisioned myself 5 years from now, I went back to college and enrolled in the Educational Leadership Master's program ...

Internet Safety concepts are sometimes hard for the younger student. Below I listed  a few of my favorite resources. Video: Story: ABCya's Cyber Five Video:  Faux Paw's Adventures in the Internet (Oldie but Goodie) Game: Webonauts BrainPOP Jr.'s Internet Safety What's you favorite resource?

If you haven't heard by now, there is a new feature in Google Classroom that I have been longing for: assigning individual assignments! {You can read all about the new update features here. } Released in January 2017, you can now assign students in your classrooms different assignments as well as questions. I have been using this feature for over a week to give it a test run- and it is everything that I have been waiting for! Some examples of how I use it: My fourth graders are currently working with a school in India on a project about pollution. The teacher in the school in India initiated the project by creating Padlets  that discussed the causes and effects of pollution in India and shared it with us via two blog posts to look over and comment on. I did not want all the students to gravitate to the blog post that contained the padlet with more videos and less text articles. Using Google Classroom's new feature, I simply divided the two posts strategically as t...

About a week ago (postponed due to weather), I presented an after school training for the parents of the children of whom I teach. I like to do that now and then as I feel that there is great value in keeping our parents (valued stakeholders) current with what their awesome sons and daughters are doing in their classrooms. Especially with technology. I feel like it bridges the gap between home and school. I also feel like it eases their minds in case they need to help their children on an assignment. Only if I could help explain math.... Anyway, below is a presentation that I provided my parents. Feel free to grab it for yourself and make adjustments. I also provided them with "training" Google usernames- so they could experience GSuite for Education themselves. I can attest that they had a lot of fun experiencing GDocs and the features of sharing and commenting.  {Maybe a little too much for that matter!} The parent participants even experienced what it was like to t...

Below are two quick video tutorials from two of my favorite tasks from Wizer.me . You can find more of a detailed tutorial from my blog post  here . Both the Draw and Fill in on an Image task offer a plethora of robust ways to make your digital worksheets come to life! Enjoy!

A few months ago, I was sent on a quest that was initiated by my middle school science teacher to find her an easy-to-use digital worksheet creator that will grade for her. That is where I stumbled upon Wizer.me. So, if you are on the hunt for an application where you can create, share and grade digital worksheets; look no further than Wizer.me ! I have been an advent user of this application myself for a few months now and love the features that this platform keeps adding! I find that if I get myself involved with the app, understand it and fall in love with it- the easier it is to share it with my staff. Although the list does not stop here, below is a list of some of the perks to creating a digital worksheet in Wizer.me: Ability to assign your Worksheets to Google Classroom, Edmodo or with a link. Promotes collaboration as Wizer.me has an abundant amount of "Community Worksheets" that educators can share with one another. Question options, such as fill in the ...

Below is a lesson that I conduct with my third graders each year to help them understand how to use Google Docs more efficiently. It's all about sharing caring and commenting, because that's what thrid graders do best! G O O G L E  Docs Understanding Google Docs Objectives: How is Google Docs like Microsoft Word? What is a benefit of using Google Docs? How can you use Google Docs? How can you use Google Docs in a group project by sharing? How do we make comments, share, insert images, word count and spell check? Assignment 1:  Opening,   Comment i ng  and sharing-  because it's caring! Open a new Google Doc and title it: Assignment 1 Teachers, discuss with your students that you will be having a "round robin" writing experiment with Google Docs. Instruct them to write an intro paragraph for a story (we are more focused on the process and not the product here). This story can be about anything! You will be given 5 minutes. If you finish th...