Tech Season

'Tis the season to be techy!

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Click on the date to reveal a tech tip, tool or activity!

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2023

Problem Based Coding

AI for Oceans

AI has been a hot topic as it can be an amazing tool for solving common problems but it can also be a concern in terms of potential misuse. Code.org has a great activity that highlights the potential positive uses of AI. This activity is geared more towards 3-5 grades but would also be great for the savvy 2nd grader.

Through this activity students will understand/develop the following skills and concepts:

• Machine learning
• Problem solving/debugging
• Pollution

AI for Oceans on Code.org

Did you know?

Windows allow you to add more extensive content. You can enrich your genially by including PDFs, videos, text ... The window content will appear when you click on the interactive element.

Have you ever thought about what makes a content created in Genially stand out from the rest? Without a doubt, interactivity and animation are the two main reasons. This is how you will get your audience's attention, by showing the most important information first and getting their attention with interactive and animated elements. Yep, you read that right. Interactivity and animation can turn even the most boring content into something super fun. In Genially, we use AI (Awesome interactivity) in all our designs so that you can level up with interactivity and turn your content into something that engages and provides value.

Not sure how to incorporate computer science standards into your regular curriculum? Want a unique way to introduce new content? Look no further than the Central VA Computer Science Integration Hub. There are complete lessons for each grade level both unplugged (paper-based) and digital!

CVCSI Hub

If you haven't heard of MagicSchool AI yet, this is a tool you will want to bookmark! Their mission is to make teaching easier and save what you value most, TIME. They have tools for just about everything. The video above is just the most recent update. Like what you see and want to learn more? Reach out and I'll be happy to show you around! Just remember that AI is not perfect . Remember to review your AI creations and make edits where necessary.

• MagicSchool AI

• MagicSchool AI: The Basics

• Magic Toolkit for Every Teacher

Insert an awesome video for your presentation and use this space to caption it. Multimedia content is essential in a presentation, to really wow your audience. What’s more, this way you can summarize the content and entertain your audience.

Not sure how to incorporate computer science standards into your regular curriculum? Want a unique way to introduce new content? Look no further than the Central VA Computer Science Integration Hub. There are complete lessons for each grade level both unplugged (paper-based) and digital!

CVCSI Hub

Today we're featuring a tech tool to use for both you and your students. Stress and anxiety can often disguise itself as misbehavior in students which, in turn, amplifies an educators stress, anxiety and frustration. Headspace offers mindfulness and meditation exercises for FREE to educators. Some of their lessons come with video while others are just audio guides. To enroll, click on the link below and give it a try when you and your students need to regroup.

You can make an outline to summarize the content and use words that will be imprinted in the memories of your audience. Numbered ideas are remembered much better than bulleted lists. You can develop the content in more detail in your verbal presentation. We recommend training your voice and rehearsing; the best improvisation happens when you’re prepared!

Help the Grinch save Christmas

Max and the Grinch need your help delivering all of the presents back to Whoville!Students will complete leveled tasks and demonstrate the following skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Problem Solving
• Sequencing
• Loops
• Create their own program

The Grinch: Hour of Code

Help the Grinch save Christmas

Max and the Grinch need your help delivering all of the presents back to Whoville!Students will complete leveled tasks and demonstrate the following skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Problem Solving
• Sequencing
• Loops
• Create their own program

The Grinch: Hour of Code

Give your students a different kind of brain break using this interactive choiceboard from Katie Fielding. This choiceboard was made using Genially. If you're interested in learning how you can make interactive choiceboards through this tool, reach out and let me know!

Genially's interactivity feature allows you to organize the content in different layers so that your audience can explore it. This is the main reason why Genially content engages and motivates easily. What’s more, you avoid cluttering your content with too much information. Animation gives you amazing results without coding. You can bring the elements of your creation to life in just a few clicks - no one can ignore content that moves!

Today we're featuring a tech tool to use for both you and your students. Stress and anxiety can often disguise itself as misbehavior in students which, in turn, amplifies an educators stress, anxiety and frustration. Headspace offers mindfulness and meditation exercises for FREE to educators. Some of their lessons come with video while others are just audio guides. To enroll, click on the link below and give it a try when you and your students need to regroup.

Students not showing interest in your slideshow? Need something to jazz up an otherwise "Meh" presentation? Show off your star power by adding GIFS and stickers to your Google Slides lessons! To search for GIFS and stickers, click on "Insert" in the toolbar, "Images" and then click on "GIFS and stickers" to open a search tool. This is a fun way to capture anyone's attention.

You know it’s a Wow presentation when you hold your audience’s attention, everyone assimilates the information you’ve shared, you make interactivity and animation your allies, and you hear the audience’s applause. You know a presentation is boring when you see that your audience is in a daze, no one has understood anything you’ve said, you hear your audience snoring, and there is so much text that there is no room for images.

To create an interactive image ... you can use a photo or illustration as a base. The important thing is that it’s visually attractive so that it gets your audience’s attention. Although you shouldn’t overuse bullet points, icons and diagrams can be your best allies when telling stories. You’ll hold the attention of your audience and the information will be imprinted in their brains.

Problem Based Coding

AI for Oceans

AI has been a hot topic as it can be an amazing tool for solving common problems but it can also be a concern in terms of potential misuse. Code.org has a great activity that highlights the potential positive uses of AI. This activity is geared more towards 3-5 grades but would also be great for the savvy 2nd grader.

Through this activity students will understand/develop the following skills and concepts:

• Machine learning
• Problem solving/debugging
• Pollution

AI for Oceans on Code.org

To create an interactive image ... you can use a photo or illustration as a base. The important thing is that it’s visually attractive so that it gets your audience’s attention. Although you shouldn’t overuse bullet points, icons and diagrams can be your best allies when telling stories. You’ll hold the attention of your audience and the information will be imprinted in their brains.

Insert an awesome video for your presentation and use this space to caption it. Multimedia content is essential in a presentation, to really wow your audience. What’s more, this way you can summarize the content and entertain your audience.

Give your students a different kind of brain break using this interactive choiceboard from Katie Fielding. This choiceboard was made using Genially. If you're interested in learning how you can make interactive choiceboards through this tool, reach out and let me know!

Don't spend time creating content that interrupts us when we're watching something interesting.BE the something interesting. Our brain unconsciously processes about 11 million units of visual information per second, while it only processes about 50 units of conscious information per second.

Genially's interactivity feature allows you to organize the content in different layers so that your audience can explore it. This is the main reason why Genially content engages and motivates easily. What’s more, you avoid cluttering your content with too much information. Animation gives you amazing results without coding. You can bring the elements of your creation to life in just a few clicks - no one can ignore content that moves!

Have you ever thought about what makes a content created in Genially stand out from the rest? Without a doubt, interactivity and animation are the two main reasons. This is how you will get your audience's attention, by showing the most important information first and getting their attention with interactive and animated elements. Yep, you read that right. Interactivity and animation can turn even the most boring content into something super fun. In Genially, we use AI (Awesome interactivity) in all our designs so that you can level up with interactivity and turn your content into something that engages and provides value.

Students not showing interest in your slideshow? Need something to jazz up an otherwise "Meh" presentation? Show off your star power by adding GIFS and stickers to your Google Slides lessons! To search for GIFS and stickers, click on "Insert" in the toolbar, "Images" and then click on "GIFS and stickers" to open a search tool. This is a fun way to capture anyone's attention.

With this feature ... You can add additional content that will excite your audience’s brains: videos, images, links, interactivity ... Whatever you like! Did you know? Windows allow you to add more extensive content. You can enrich your genially by including PDFs, videos, text ... The window content will appear when you click on the interactive element.

Add music, audio, or sound effects to the elements of your genially … It makes all the difference!

With the Genially templates, you can include visual resources to wow your audience. You can also highlight a particular sentence or piece of information so that it sticks in your audience’s minds, or even embed external content to surprise them: Whatever you like! Do you need more reasons to create dynamic content? No problem! 90% of the information we assimilate reaches us via sight and, what’s more, we retain 42% more information when the content moves.

Our brains are hardwired to consume visual content. Some facts: we receive 90% of the information we process through sight and we process visual content up to 60,000 times faster than text. That’s why visual communication ismore effective. We generally grasp visual content better. Visual content is associated with cognitive and psychological mechanisms. We receive things through our eyes; the first image is what counts. We associate visual content with emotions.

Showing enthusiasm, smiling, and maintaining eye contact with your audience can be your best allies when it comes to telling stories that excite and capture the audience's interest: 'The eyes, chico. They never lie'. This will help you connect with your audience. Knock their socks off! Visual communication is a key tool. We find it easier to ‘read’ images than to read a written text. Disciplines such as ‘Visual Thinking’ facilitate the taking of visually rich notes through the use of images, graphs, infographics, and simple drawings.

By using interactive resources, you’ll be able to distribute information in different levels, making it easier to understand. On top of that, interactivity allows your audience to assimilate the ideas you want to convey in an intuitive way and with no effort on their part. Genially lets you add different types of interactivity very easily, with just a few clicks. That way, using interactivity and animation to create surprising content is super easy with Genially. And since people remember positive experiences better, you’ll get awesome results with little effort.

Our brains are hardwired to consume visual content. Some facts: we receive 90% of the information we process through sight and we process visual content up to 60,000 times faster than text. That’s why visual communication ismore effective. We generally grasp visual content better. Visual content is associated with cognitive and psychological mechanisms. We receive things through our eyes; the first image is what counts. We associate visual content with emotions.

Could it be said that images are the key to success? Pretty much. This is because visual language facilitates the rapid acquisition of knowledge in an intuitive way. Convince 67% of the audience. Use this space to caption your visual content. You can upload an image from your computer or use the resources available in Genially, on the left side of the Editor. Knock their socks off!

Genially, thanks to its gallery of resources, helps us enhance the formal and functional coherence within our digital creations. Thus, we generate an immersive communicative environment in which real visual stories flourish. We generally grasp visual content better. Visual content is associated with cognitive and psychological mechanisms. We receive things through our eyes; the first image is what counts. We associate visual content with emotions.

90% of the information we assimilate is received through sight.

Our brain unconsciously processes about 11 million units of visual information per second, while it only processes about 50 units of conscious information per second.

Did you know? that 90% of the information we assimilate is received through sight? Visual resources are a huge help for reinforcing your message: images, illustrations, gifs, videos ... Not only because they stay in our memories, but because they’re more attractive and easier to understand. Convince 67% of the audience. This is because visual language facilitates the rapid acquisition of knowledge in an intuitive way. Could it be said that images are the key to success? Pretty much.

Genially has hundreds of templates ready to inspire you and help you find new ways to tell stories through interactive content such as images, microsites, videos, and infographics. With these features, you're just a few clicks away from your next big communication success. If your content is interactive, it’s engaging.

With this feature ... You can add additional content that will excite your audience’s brains: videos, images, links, interactivity ... Whatever you like! Did you know? Windows allow you to add more extensive content. You can enrich your genially by including PDFs, videos, text ... The window content will appear when you click on the interactive element.

Storytelling is the art of telling stories. People have a natural predisposition to consume them. Did you know that ⅔ of our daily conversations are stories? We remember stories up to 20 times more than any other type of content. According to neuroscience, when we listen to a story, our brain lights up like a Christmas tree. Stories stimulate the same cerebral areas that are activated by reading, and on top of that, activate our auditory, visual, sensory, motor, and even olfactory cortices. We hear information, but we feel stories. This emotion is what maximizes concept retention.

If you haven't heard of MagicSchool AI yet, this is a tool you will want to bookmark! Their mission is to make teaching easier and save what you value most, TIME. They have tools for just about everything. The video above is just the most recent update. Like what you see and want to learn more? Reach out and I'll be happy to show you around! Just remember that AI is not perfect . Remember to review your AI creations and make edits where necessary.

• MagicSchool AI: The Basics

• Magic Toolkit for Every Teacher

When giving a presentation, you need to go after two main objectives: to convey information and avoid yawns. To do this, it can be good practice to make an outline and use words that will be imprinted in the memories of your audience. If you want to add additional information or develop the content in detail, you can do this with your verbal presentation. We recommend training your voice and rehearsing; the best improvisation happens when you’re prepared!

It’s clear that technology has changed the world, so why do we keep communicating with the same materials and tools? Genially was born in answer to this question - it’s the tool that aims to turn visual and interactive content into a new standard, without investing hundreds of hours in coding. The great ally of the most creative minds. The interface is carefully designed to be user friendly. Creating content is as simple as selecting and dragging elements from the Editor (drag and drop). It's ok if the resources in Genially are not enough for you: you can upload your own resources: illustrations, videos, gifs ... and not only from your own computer, but also resources from other platforms such as YouTube or Giphy.

Stay focused and grow a forest!

This google extension works for both students and teachers as a fun task management tool. You can create allowlists and blocklists. When you're ready to get to work, click on the tree to start a 30 minute timer and plant a tree. Every time you try to go to another site, it will remind you that your timer is still going.

• Focus on one thing at a time
• Set your allowlists and blocklists to keep you focused
• Build a virtual forest

Winter Read Alouds

Choose from a handful of your favorite winter read alouds on this Google Slideshow. Click on the link icon above to view the presentation!