Wow! This project was a journey, and I am sure it isn't even over yet! I tried at least three websites (logomaker, logomakr, and logojoy), before finally using Canva.
Let's chat about this journey, shall we? I first played on logomaker; it was flashy, fun and quick. I immediately fell in love with a design- it was simplistic and conveyed everything I wanted in one, simple shape. The problem, you ask? The price was the problem, they wanted $39.95 for the logo! The. Logo. Nope, not going to happen, unless I get desperate as the semester wears on, that is. Logomakr, was essentially the same as the first site, but without the neato graphics. The graphics reminded me of clip art. That's cool, I am not terribly tech savvy and clip art was cool in the early '90's, I am in. Again, I design a logo, fall in like with it and, boom! here is the final price. Ugh. Onto logojoy I go. Ok, so far so good, I can choose from so many potential designs, update on the fly, change colors, fonts, you name it. I narrow it down to 20 designs (I wish I was joking), drag the husband in for a second opinion, argue (constructively, of course, after all we are married), and settle on a design/color scheme I can live with for a first draft. Then I see the "buy" button. Dude, are you kidding me right now? So, I do what any logo making master's student would do; google search. I pledge allegiance to google, for which it searches, one nation, under results....you get the idea. After a quick search for "totally FREE logo designs", I finally remembered that Canva has tons of free options and might, just in fact, save my sanity. While I am not sure about the second part of the previous sentence, Canva really did have some great options. While it did not have the first logo I adored, or the flashy clip-art, it did have some viable solutions, that I can probably live with for the next 20 minutes. Maybe.
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The fact that the idea of Transliteracy came about over 50 years ago is mind-boggling. That McLuhan wrote about using the medium as the message before the internet was even a "thing", is well, bordering on the work of science-fiction. So what does this mean in my classroom? What does this translate for in terms of my students?
For starters, it means I need to be deliberate in the way I approach technology and content. Today's learner is very visual and needs quick bursts of information. The chunk and chew approach if you will. If I am choosing a video from edpuzzle for one of my classes, then I need to be sure that the content is not only relevant, but doesn't bore my students to tears. Sure, I do echo with the rest of the school about our Do Now and daily agenda, but the real meat of my delivery is when I attach or incorporate tech- rich content. I'm not going to lie, this is a whole lot easier to do with my math classes than it is with my ELA class. But why is that so? Why do so many ELA based classes tend to be boring and dry? I think, without any fact, that no one has yet to try jazzing up these subjects. Perhaps, the idea is that if the reading is dense, then the subject simply cannot be any fun. As of right now, I am supposed to be primarily a Social Studies teacher next year. For me, that means I need to look at traditionally mind-numbing material and make it come alive for the students. In short, I need to focus on the medium I use to teach the method. |