I have a YouTube channel, and I use it to post teaching and other silly videos. I’ve been trying to figure out how to verify my Youtube site with this blog, but the it’s out of my range of skills. I even asked my husband to come look at it, he just tells me to RT*M. Rude.

BUT ANYWAY:

Let me start over. I have a YouTube Channel, and also wanted to list a few other tech tools I use regularly to create digital art and teaching videos.

via GIPHY

The likelihood that we’ll continue to teach some kind of hybrid model into the next school year seems very likely. I’m not trying to downplay or dismiss the high levels of panic and anxiety most of us teachers, administrators and parents are feeling–but this is my coping post–focus on the lists.

Some of these cost money to buy, and some are on subscriptions. I am a Mac person, but have used Chrome and Windows, too.

Here are a few tools I use to make my teaching and other digital art pieces:

i-Movie

I’ve used i-Movie off and on for a long time, but there are many video software options available. I’ve been meaning to dig into Wondershare Filmora (I bought the software, just haven’t done anything with it yet). My husband is highly skilled at video, and AfterEffects, but it’s too pricey for my purposes.

VideoScribe

VideoScribe (Sparkol) is fairly easy to learn but takes time to master. And I am not great at it, yet. https://www.videoscribe.co/en

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is like Screencastify, and I’ve used Voila, too. Get yourself a decent webcam.

Vizia is a free tool to make annotations on existing videos. https://vizia.co/

Pixelmator

Like Photoshop, but much less expensive, easy to use, and fun. That’s how I create a lot of the art for this blog:

YouTube

Make yourself a YouTube channel. Still working on making it organized, etc.

TikTok

I haven’t posted much on TikTok, but many other teachers have, for better or worse.

Prezi

I still love Prezi. Even though it’s $$$.

Thinglink

Love thinglink.

Flipgrid

I’ve had great success with this in the past, but not last year. I’ll try it again, though.

Apps:

I use a lot of apps, but these are my most frequent choices:

1. Artisto
2. Boomerang
3. GifX
4. Gilful
5. Nutshell
6. PicMonkey/Canva (desktop versions)
7. Pixomatic
8. Plotaverse
9. Repix
10. Snapchat for funky filters, videos, etc.
11. Snapseed
12. WordSwag (WordSwag Story just came out, too)

Some of the equipment I use is a very old but still functioning Mac, BlueSnowball Mic, Logi webcam, and a quiet place to work. The last one is just pure luck.

Plotaverse can make these: (made with WordSwag, Repix, and Plotaverse)

Now, the next question is what am I going to rebuild/build with these tools? I’m pondering on how to decolonize my syllabus, and juggle the district’s requirements, ELL standards, ELA, and Visual Art. This is my draft of how I’m going to organize the calendar year. As of today, it’s essentially blank. I do know a lot of choice will go into the schedule, along with weekly, regular assignments. This seems to work well for most students, most of the time. I tried it with a Question of the Week when we closed for the quarantine, and overall it wasn’t too bad–but once students knew all they had to do was answer a phone call or send an email to pass their classes, work dropped off. And that’s okay. I’ll start to organize the Google Classrooms, set up the interactive Google Slides, and try to organize academic and emotional needs remotely. We all need luck, don’t we?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vvhQuaJv5obiDtuQ7AnDI7_LrfBzh7zfsToYTnmxqAM/edit?usp=sharing