Spotify Wrapped - templates and lesson ideas

One thing many of our students are talking about is their Spotify "Wrapped" which dropped last week. If you're a Spotify user you may be enjoying your own wrapped summary/playlist (I know I am) but even if you're not a user, your students are likely talking about theirs.

What I enjoyed about reading my lists is that I had a few "huh?" moments from surprising (to me) information. Those moments always lead to some kind of reflection. Having students do reflection activities in a format that is familiar to them could be an engaging way for students to demonstrate or reflect on their learning. 

Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook has created templates that mimic Spotify Wrapped for students to use in Google Slides or Canva. You could share these templates with students as is or customize the templates to fit exactly how you want students to use them.

With Magic School's help, I have created a list of academic uses of Spotify Wrapped that can be used in different content areas. Check out the list and activity list here:   Academic Uses for Analyzing Spotify Wrapped

AI generated Slide Decks

Shake Up Learning's Kasey Bell reviews AI generated Slide Decks and compares pros and cons for four tools for teachers - SlidesAI.io, Gamma, Canva, and Brisk. Magic school will also create content for slide decks, but not the actual slides. A good alternative for folks who want to quickly create content and like to create their own designs.

Note: the four apps that Kasey reviews have free and paid versions, which sometimes means limitations in the free version (and we have no plans to purchase the paid versions at this time, FYI). Check out Kasey's helpful post here:

AI-Generated Slide Decks for Teachers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Note Taking + Canva 

In a recent We Are Teachers blog post, Jill Staake recently shared 11 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies Your Students Should Know. She includes comments and resources about the digital vs. handwritten notes debate - which helps students retain information better. Whichever side you land on in that discussion, Canva can help you and your students create note-taking documents to support learning.

Canva has many templates to choose from. Use them as-is with your students (print or digital), or customize them to meet your needs/style. Some examples here: 

• Research Tracker/Notes Template

• Cornell Note-Taking Template

• Critical Thinking Problem and Solution Graphic Organizer

• Theme Analysis Graphic Organizer

• Character Analysis Graphic

What's the point of using Canva? Customization is key...

1. You can choose the format that works for your students... print or restrict editing options to keep them from distractions or share editing permissions so they may customize to fit their own learning styles. You know your students best and what will work for them.

2. Share with colleagues—use consistent formats/graphics for shared students (teams) or save time by borrowing templates from colleagues.

3. Change fonts for specific student needs. Canva has dyslexic-friendly fonts, like OpenDyslexic (read more here about best fonts for Dyslexia).

4. Easily combine templates to make one notebook of all notes/templates.

Templates save time, and you can search by style (Minimalist, Modern, Illustrative/Aesthetic, etc) or by purpose (daily/weekly planning, project management/scaffolding, business vs. education, note-taking, analysis and evidence, etc.).

Swank - sharing videos with students

Apologies for the delay in sharing videos via Swank - it has finally been set up! You can now share a bookmark/segment of a video from Swank via Google classroom or email.This could be a very useful tool if students are absent or for pre-teaching/pre-viewing a concept prior to working on related content in class.

When students click on the shared link, they will be directed to sign in with their spsdme email. Here are the steps: Sharing Swank video content with students

FYI, when you send bookmarked segments, students will have access to the whole movie.

Split screen on iPads - iOS 26

Many students love using a split screen on their iPads. Apple changes the gestures and features in their updates and with the latest update, creating a split is a bit different. It requires a couple of extra steps and can find these steps here:  Split Screen on student iPads - iOS 26

Please feel free to share with students :-)

Media Literacy Week

Next week is Media Literacy and Digital Citizenship Week, which covers topics such as AI, digital literacy, media culture and behaviors, influence and bias, and civics in an online world. It’s a broad umbrella of topics that span across all content areas.

While Media Literacy and Digital Citizenship Week is officially scheduled for next week, it’s truly something that we integrate into our work throughout the entire year. I’ve created a page of resources to support your classroom efforts and will be adding to it throughout the week. If you’d like to collaborate on a project, let me know! Additionally, if you need help finding resources for specific class work or topics related to media and/or digital literacy and citizenship, feel free to reach out—I’d be happy to help.

Media Literacy and Digital Citizenship Week Resources

Remembering Jane Goodall - Ed Puzzle

As an iconic advocate for animal welfare, Jane Goodall revolutionized the study of animal behavior. She inspired global awareness and action to protect endangered species and their habitats. In this EdPuzzle activity students can learn more about her life and work. Use it today or bookmark for Women's history month in March.

Ed Puzzle is a great way to check for understanding when using video instruction. If you haven't checked it out lately they have added content and features that may interest you. You can create your own lessons or check out the many pre-made lessons (a big time saver!).

More from EdPuzzle...

• Pre-made video lessons for Grades 9-12

• New Quizzes feature - for ELA and Social Studies

• PD Courses for teachers

Google SSO - Google Single Sign On

Students must use their school Google account to log into several apps such as Knowt, Orange Passes and Canva. These apps are web based and will look for recent or frequent logins in the browser which could be a student's personal email (or a parent's login) This can cause login issues when trying to login with their spsdme account. For example, a student may be trying to login to Orange Passes and it's reading their login to Netflix from the night before.

Here's a fix:

For apps that use school Google sign-ons, have the student open the Classlink app first,  login via Google and then tap the app to open it from Classlink. Click here for step by step directions (also found on the Student Resource page of my website).

If you are using an app/website that requires the school Google login, and it is not found in Classlink, I can request to have it added, just let me know :-)

Remove distractions in Youtube

Below is a video link to show you a quick Youtube hack to remove distracting elements (ads, comments, and additional videos) when you share a Youtube video with students.

Remove Distractions in Videos

Student reflections on learning

There are several ways students can reflect on their learning - via exit tickets, journals, setting learning goals, etc. Canva has many templates you can use with your students if you don't feel like creating them from scratch. You can use them as is, edit to fit your needs/style, use all or some of them... or maybe just have a look to get you thinking about how you might want to use student reflection in your classes.

Here is an example for you check out: Canva - Student led activity 

Swank

Showing movies has a bad rap in the education world because it's often assumed that people are not teaching, just entertaining. Ok, sometimes this may be true but video can be a really great way to reinforce learning.

At last week's staff meeting Tina shared how she collaborated with Swank AI tools to create resources that were relevant to her curriculum, aligned with standards and met the individual needs of her students. Thank you, Tina, for being willing to share on the spot!

I'd love to meet with you or your department to discover  ways to use this tool in your classes.

Directions for creating your teacher account can be found here: Teacher Resources

A couple of reminders:

• Requests for R Rated movies will not be approved. If there is a section of an R rated movie you wish to show you need to schedule time with Ben D.

• In your request you must complete all the fields, including the name of the class and your intended educational use.

• This tool is for classroom use

Logging into Canva via Classlink

When logging into Canva for the first time, you may be redirected to the Classlink page. From there, there is no obvious way on how to continue logging in, so I've created a video to show the next steps: Log in to Canva via Classlink. Once you've logged in once, you can stay logged in and should be able to skip the Classlink page moving forward.

Turn off video previews on your Apple TV

Some folks don't want autoplay previews showing on the Apple TV home screen. Thanks Bryan Hoy for sharing these steps to shut them off: 

Using your apple TV remote go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion, and then toggle Auto-Play Video Previews to Off. This will stop trailers and other content from playing automatically when you navigate through apps like the Apple TV app on your Home screen.

Low tech is a good thing too!

I don't know about you but sometimes I feel like I am tethered to my technology and can't escape it. It seems like everyday tasks are now requiring tech and it's becoming more challenging to take a break. Today's post is all about taking a break :-)

1. Low tech classroom activities that keep with good strategies for student engagement, critical thinking, and building essential skills—no devices required. Shake Up Learning's recent post shares 20 Low Tech Ideas for Teachers. Have a look and see if any would fit with what you're doing in your classes.

Attached is an Offline Instagram Reflection Template you can use with students, or click here for editable Canva version.

2. Avoid Tech Burnout

From the same author -  tips for balancing tech without burnout.

5 Practical ways teachers can balance tech without burnout

3. Don't get caught up in tech buzzwords

"Innovation"  is a buzzword that gets tossed around and linked with technology use. Certainly you can use technology to bring innovative ideas to life, but using technology alone is not innovative. George Couros is one of my fave authors and speakers. I've read most of his books, attended some of his presentations and was lucky enough to meet him recently at a conference. I love his definition of innovation:

 "Innovation is a way of thinking, rather than simply the way we use technology." 

If you would like to read more from him on the topic, here's the blog post 3 Misconceptions About Innovation in Education.