Issue 19 • Date October 30, 2024

I taught at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska, for 8 years. The school has a tradition of teachers singing and dancing during a talent show on the last day of school.

May 30, 2006, was my last day working at Willowdale, and kindergarten teacher Julie Jernstrom walked up to my desk and asked me, “Do you want to go out with a bang?”

Julie was a former Nebraska University cheerleader, and that morning she taught me how to hoist her up into a Shoulder Bird. We practiced several times, and despite my fears, I did not drop her.

During the afternoon’s talent show, I ran up onto the stage while the other teachers did their song and dance. Julie positioned herself by my side, and I performed the maneuver and twirled her around while she was perched on my shoulder. The gymnasium erupted with cheers. I did indeed go out with a bang on my last day at Willowdale.

AI-Assisted Analysis 🧐

NotebookLM is Google’s AI-powered tool for “understanding things.” You can add up to 50 sources to an online notebook, and you can ask the AI questions about those sources. NotebookLM can use your sources to generate handy things like study guides, timelines, and briefing docs. 

Sources can be any combination of uploaded files, Google Drive files, web links, YouTube videos, or pasted text.

Sources can be any combination of uploaded files, Google Drive files, web links, YouTube videos, or pasted text.

NotebookLM might be best known for its ability to generate an audio podcast episode based on the sources you’ve added. The “Deep Dive” podcast has two hosts that carry on a very real-sounding conversation. You can customize the podcast to focus on a specific source, topic, or audience. You cannot customize the length of the podcast—they usually are about 10 minutes.

The podcast feature in NotebookLM can be found by opening the Notebook guide. I added this week’s Learning in Hand Newsletter as a source and had NotebookLM generate a podcast. Take a listen to the AI generated hosts. It’s 15 minutes, so you might consider clicking the three dots and changing the playback speed.

Intrigued and want to try NotebookLM? Google’s Blog has 8 expert tips for getting started with NotebookLM.

Visual Vibes 😎

Peggy Reimers shares 14 editable SEL check-ins made in Google Slides. They have creative cues that are visual shorthand for feelings. Some of these are:

• 🙃 Emojis

• 👟 Shoes

• 🎃 Jack o' lanterns

• 🙂 LEGO

• 🐑 Sheep

• 🌞 Solar

November Notebook 🍁

Book Creator has digital activity books for every month. The November Journal Activity Book has 30 activities for students in grades 2-6. Truly, the design, colors, and animations in this book are eye-catching!

Some of the activities’ topics include:

• Japanese culture

• Making candy

• Tsunamis

• Art museums

• Veterans Day

• Diabetes

• Toilets

• Cranberry recipes

Teachers can remix the book and edit it before giving students copies.

Remarkable Remarks 📝

With Khanmigo’s free AI-driven report card comment generator, you can offer personalized and constructive feedback that fosters student growth and development—without spending hours struggling to find the right words.

Input the student’s grade level, strengths and highlights, and areas for improvement. Khanmigo generates comments that you can edit on the site before copying and pasting.

There is an optional field for the student’s first name. To protect student privacy, I recommend leaving that field blank. Khanmigo will use a name placeholder that you can later replace.

Khanmigo displays this note above its generated comments:

“This tool needs your expertise to be excellent. Be sure to closely review and edit these report card comments before applying them to students!”

Creating QR Codes 🔲

I keep learning about new (to me) QR code generators! Recently, I found the Free QR Code Generator from Adobe Express. Simply enter or paste a URL, and the QR code is instantly updated. You can download the standard blocky black and white version, or you can customize the style and color. 

Changing up the dots, marker borders, and marker centers can give your QR code a softer look. Changing the color can help differentiate your QR code from others and help it better fit into a project’s design.

While the generator is free, you do need to sign up or sign into an Adobe Express account in order to download your QR code. Though, I was able to save the QR code as a PNG image by right-clicking and saving the image without signing in. 😉

Creepy Canva 😱

Right now Canva has some special Magic Shortcuts.

While in Present view, pressing...

• 🕷️ S drops a spider from the top of the screen.

• 👻 G summons a ghost to float across the screen.

The spider and ghost Magic Shorcuts are temporary, and they will be gone after this week.

We didn’t record video on our phones back in 2006. Instead, we recorded video with a handheld camera that saved to digital tape. Remember Firewire?!?

Video back then was low resolution, nonetheless, I am happy I have a recording of the moment Julie and I did the Shoulder Bird during the talent show. Ezgif.com’s Video to GIF converter turned the video clip into the animation below.

All my best,

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