Illustrator and Photoshop Mock-ups! Smart!

I've participated and viewed Logo Design Contests online for years (mostly to get project ideas). Some of the entries are so fancy, with billboard and glass windows with the logos on them. I always wondered how they took the time to do that for these contests. And, I know the concept of mock-ups....

But, friends, I didn't know you could just download tons of free mock-ups that you could place your artwork into!

My kids are going to love this in the fall!

Have you ever had your kids design artwork for can? A box? A bottle? It's "fine" when you look at it on the computer, I guess, but using a mock-up will get them much more excited and bring their ideas to life.

Here are a few sites that you can get them from:

• https://www.mockupworld.co/all-mockups/
• https://originalmockups.com/free-mockups
• https://www.graphberry.com/category/mock-ups
• https://graphicburger.com/tag/mock-up/
• http://freemockupzone.com/  <--- that one is my favorite!

Just watch my short video here and you can see how to use them. I'll be using this in a workshop I'm doing next week on Illustrator!

Here's my example with my family cycling logo, put nicely on a cup (and I show you how in the video!):

Curriculum Work... Tylenol Murders!

Well, school has been out for less than a week and, while also prepping for a workshop I am giving next week, I am already working on curriculum for next year. I am picking up Business Law (yay!) next year and wanted to try to find a few podcast episodes to work in to the class.

I was listening on my way to work yesterday on the How Stuff Works podcast and they had an episode on the Tylenol murders. I had been reading about the biggest recalls of all time for the unit on product liability and that sort of thing and thought this was timely. So, here's the episode I listened to:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/the-tylenol-murders-part-ii-45475709/

I think the students will enjoy it. It's pretty long, so might do a few time cues and have them skip some things so it can fit into one class period and leave time for discussion (this is part 2, I didn't listen to part 1).

My thought is to play it and have a visual "notes sheet" they will work on while they listen to help them listen (more of a scavenger hunt to figure out why the words/dates/etc. are important).

I honestly think this would work in a variety of business classes since it really discusses the public
relations needed to come back from a crisis like this one.

Anyone have any other good podcast episodes kids might enjoy?

Old School Typing Tournament! #busedu

This week in my Computer Applications class, we've had some fun. Last week, I had students take about half the hour to do some typing practice (Typing Academy 2 minute timings). I walked around while students were typing just checking out their typing speeds (which, by the way, my students were pretty impressive! I had 12 out of my 25 who were typing around 50 wpm or more!). If they got a speed they wanted me to see (improved), they could call me over and I recorded it old school on a clipboard.

I had decided to probably take the top 10 or so and create a bracket, but due to time, I just went with top 8. I found an online "bracket" through Challonge and plugged in the names based on their ranks on my walkarounds and put it on my class website and Twitter, so they could all see who was ranked where. They were quite eager for me to update it each day!



The competition rounds were fierce! They had to type at my teacher computer at the front of the room on the big screen (yep, where everyone could watch). PRESSURE. And it really affected speeds. They were feeling it! I always had the  lower seed go first and they got TWO attempts, just to take a little pressure off. Round 1 we did over two class periods and then the other rounds on two different days. Students were also working on their independent review (Mindtap SAM reviews for our final exam, which got boring sometimes, so this was a distraction at times for those who wanted a break!).

I used this website and created a "custom text" timing (sign up with a Google account for free and you can create and save your own) that they typed (this example is round 3, which I actually gave my top two the night before so they could practice on their own), but I started with different text for the other rounds and they didn't get to practice it in advance)-->
         Final Round  https://www.keyhero.com/custom-typing-test/tournament-3/

To determine their actual "score" I took the words per minute times the accuracy rate. If you look at my bracket, it was pretty close a few times and accuracy mattered!

If I were to do it again, I might do two brackets (silver and gold, tiered so slower ones have a chance to win) or a double elimination. I probably should have done a third place match, too. But, this was my first attempt. In my Computer Apps class, students do Typing Club as a side thing and in class several days during the semester, so we are always encouraging them to improve typing speed and accuracy; this was just a fun way to end the course, and it was a bit fun listening to the students root for the underdogs!