A Weekly Reflection: Insightful Notes From a Young Teacher

 In my exploration of Google Tools, one commonly used tool is Google Photos. With limitless storage, users can save all their photos, documents, and special moments captured on their phone or camera directly to their devices. Users can organize photos into categories, or leave it all open to scroll through and reminisce.  For myself, the collage ability has given me many ideas for gifts I can make for friends and family around the holidays. Many photos of my family, outings, and special occasions are saved to my phone, and with Google Photos, I can take specific albums or pictures and create a collage, print it off professionally, and frame it as a gift at Christmastime!  This was the collage I created for myself that reflects some fun and memorable moments of my past winter - catching up with long-lost friends, achieving new first-time goals, and spending quality time with people that matter most to me!

 Most people have some exposure to AI-created videos, shorts, or reels from their mobile devices. You know, the ones that have the same monotone, male voice explaining the unknown historical origin of a random common phrase? Or the 2-minute clips that show you step-by-step how trees are turned into paper, while walking you through a montage of trees, timber saws, and factory mills?  Well, I got to try that out this week using Google Vids . At first, it looks overwhelming. There are AI-created images, AI-created narrations, animations for images, the timeline of your video, self-made recordings, computer-uploaded content, stock and online photos, and so much more. It has everything you need to create a video from scratch with nothing but your ideas. If you need to make a how-to video with free images and a clean-sounding narration, Google Vids has it. One thing I dread in making a video is hearing myself talk while I edit my video to make the sound and image match correctly. Bu...