Culver Tech: Relaxation, Drawing on my Zoom!, and Free Math Teaching Slides

CN Area Elementary Teaching Team:

Week 03 (Aug 31 – Sep 4)

Weekly Giggles: Q: What was the first animal in space?

A: The cow that jumped over the moon.

Relaxation. Relaxation is essential. You can certainly turn your lights off, close the door, and turn the ocean on in your room. Take a mental break and breathe. I have a few YouTube videos saved on my computer. When I am working on things and I want the distractions to cease, I will put on my headphones and play the rainforest or the beach. The noise of the birds, the clap of thunder, and the patter of the falling rain melt the other noises away. You can project it on your screen if you wish. You can watch the ocean crashing on the beach and be surrounded by the deafening crashes of the salty ocean water. Remember to breathe.

Two-Screen Learning Option. Here in our classrooms, we are using more than one screen. At home, the children can do the same thing. Teacher on the television and their work on their computer. If you have any families who could benefit from this idea, feel free to share it with them. They can use the HDMI cord that runs to the Roku, Xbox, Nintendo, or DVD player. Free learning option.

Emoji Keyboard in Windows 10. Some may claim that it “lacks professionalism” to include emojis in business emails. I roll my eyes at that. I think it builds community. I even added an emoji to the auto-correct feature. I can type three letters and an emoji will appear. I have three emojis pre-programmed into the auto-correct area of my emails. They make me smile.

So, here’s a quick way to bring up the emoji keyboard. Press and hold the Windows button. Then tap the period button (.). This handy keyboard will appear. Notice the menu area at the bottom. You can move from category to category to find just what you are looking for.

Add a smile. Build community. Brighten someone’s day.

Someone is drawing on my Zoom! If the children are taking over your Zoom session, head here to see if any of these features are helpful. You can hand off the remote control to another participant and you can let students draw on your presentation, but you may only want to do that selectively. Check out these buttons if things are not to your liking.

Head into settings online.

Go ahead and turn this off:

Or edit this:

Or this one:

Free Math PowerPoints. Your math text comes with a host of PowerPoint presentations that are ready-to-go. And, there are annotation features in PowerPoint. Use those in your math lessons and draw right on those PowerPoints.