No. 5 Five Things Friday
This week, we are talking about using mockups in Canva, the Bluesky social media app, the School Librarians United podcast, and The Big Sting... my latest Battle of the Books read. Enjoy!
Edition No. 5: April 11, 2025
Every week, my goal with this newsletter is to provide you with five things that will help you with understanding technology & productivity, recommend something to read, watch, or listen to, and give you something to laugh or smile about!
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Tech Tip - Mockups in Canva
Here's how I created the above video using Canva Mockups…
I posted the video above as a reel in Instagram this week. I love using the Mockups tool in Canva to spruce up my videos and presentations! I made the images on the phone in Canva too! Here is how I did it…
For the first image, I created a video using a mockup video that had a wood floor background! I didn’t like the look of having the screen cut in two (I needed room to write some text), so I found some wood floor images on Canva that matched the background in the lower video and then I overlapped them in front of the video so that it looks seamless. The image on the iPad is a screenshot of my Sora screen! I used the Mockup feature in Canva to place my own screenshot on the iPad screen. The font I used is a favorite, Sergio Trendy, which I have set as one of my brand fonts on Canva’s branding feature. For the text, I use the "Lift" effect under "Effects" to help it pop!
For the second image, I just searched on Canva for a coffee cup video. No mockup here. Just same text (with effect) over the video, but I turned the text white so that it would show up against the dark background. I really like the steam effect that was part of the video. I didn’t have a lot of time to fuss with the video. In hindsight, I would have made each segment a bit longer.
For the third video, I covered the background image with an orange rectangle that had been made somewhat transparent so the text could stick out more. I found the mockup background image by searching "iPhone mockup" in the Elements tab. It's just an image zoomed in so that the phone is readable. (In the original image, there was a person holding a phone and the phone was rather small so I just zoomed way in.) I left the mockup as blue sky in this image so that you could see where the mockup goes and see that familiar “mockup” screen.
I kept the same image for the rest of the videos so that you could see how it changes with the mockups. For the Book Club image on the phone, I just opened a new tab of Canva and started a new design. I used an Instagram Reel image size but stayed away from the borders of the image since a phone is slimmer and taller than an Instagram image. (I realized this only after I had created the image and the words got cut off on the sides! Live and learn!)
Once the image was created, I downloaded it and then uploaded it into Canva as an image. I did that on the Uploads tab. With mockups, all you need to do is literally drag an image over the blue sky portion of the photo and the dragged image becomes the shape of the blue sky portion of the image! So easy!
Here is the finished reel (not carousel!) on my Instagram channel:
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Listening to…School Librarians United EP312 - Bluesky 101
OK, I’ve been kind of obsessing on this podcast this week. I had decided to use this podcast before I even listened to it because I love Amy Hermon’s School Librarians United podcast. It’s one of the few school librarian podcasts out there, and I just love it! This episode did not disappoint!
In the episode, entitled Bluesky 101, she talks about the social media platform, Bluesky. Specifically, how school librarians are using Bluesky, but if you are not a school librarian then you can still get a ton of great information about this new(ish) platform.
So many of us are tired of X and the drama of the little bird’s demise. To me, it feels like someone came along (we won’t say who) and smashed our cute little bird and turned it into a demonic X. It went from a fun place to be to a place that I no longer wanted, but I had built up quite a nice school librarian following on there, including Amy Hermon. (One of my favorites, and I’m not just saying that because I am talking about her here!)
In January of this year, I decided to start my own side business where I was originally going to sell Notion templates before I realized that the Notion template business is a very crowded space. I still want to create and sell templates, but I am still working out what other sorts of things I am going to do with this business. Since it is a retirement business, I have a little time to build it up. So these last few weeks, I started this Five Things Friday featuring tech tips and tools. I figure that I am going to broaden it beyond Notion so that it resonates with more people.
My friends had been telling me that I need to target my audience to school librarians and teachers, but I was afraid to tell anyone at work that I have a side business. If you are a teacher, you might understand this thinking. There is a sort of expectation in teaching that you are 100% a teacher, or even 150%. I am not. I totally love my job, I love my kids, I love my new principal. I am really so so blessed. But I want to have more than summers off. Teaching is HARD. I often say that it is like running a marathon for an entire year! I want an easy life and I am not sure that my body can teach for another 10 -15 years. Every year, I think that it will get easier and then it just doesn’t. (Although this year DID get easier, so I might be wrong about that.)
All of this brings me to why I am choosing this podcast episode. Here at Substack, we tend to be long-winded, so here was my long-winded version of the story of this podcast. It had been a while since I had listened to Amy’s podcast. She inspires me as a school librarian, and my mind was on this new business so it didn’t match up. But what if it did? What if I did decide to write to all those beloved school librarians and teachers out there who feel the same way that I do? Don’t we all just want to stop running marathons some day? So as I was listening to Amy talk about Bluesky, it felt like my little bird got new life. I had signed up for Bluesky in the beginning, but didn’t use it. So this week, I went out there and spruced up my profile! I also made a huge business decision to be open about my side business and to target my audience to school librarians and teachers. I still don’t know what I am going to sell in this fledgling business, but I know who I am talking to. That’s a start.
What I’m Reading… The Big Sting
My husband loves puns. In the 15 or so years together, I’ve grown to love them. I didn’t even catch the title pun until about halfway through the book. I’m only about 2/3 of the way through the story, so I can’t give a final recommendation, but so far it’s been a fun adventure. We all know that relative that is a little bit prickly. I can relate to both Leo and Lizzie’s perspective. My daughter is actually more like Leo and I’m more like Lizzy. I just keep thinking about the mom and dad and what they must be thinking. I can’t tell you why though. You’ll just have to read it. It’s a fun adventure that is good for any age. Plus, you get to learn about taking care of bees.
Tool of the Week: Bluesky
OK, if you took some time to listen to Amy Hermon’s School Librarians United podcast (scroll up if you missed it), then you know that it was all about this new social media app called Bluesky. Since it resembles the little blue bird app, it features a butterfly instead of a bird but gives off a similar vibe. They say you can’t go back, but in this case, it feels like I can! I can go back to enjoying my library and teacher network again! Thank you, Amy! I knew that your great name (same as mine) would be a good omen for me!
Discovering Bluesky meant a lot to me. It meant that I could find my tribe again. I had truly lost it when I deleted Twitter off my phone! I agree with Amy and Heather that Twitter is just not the same after it became X. Before that, I had really enjoyed connecting with teachers and librarians! I also really enjoyed the text based solution. Instagram drives me crazy!! It is just so much work to create videos all the time!
I know that there are Substack notes, but I am not sure that librarians are on Substack. If they are here, I have yet to find them. I’m still going to stay here though because I really do enjoy this platform for my newsletter! I suppose that I should look for some school librarians or teachers on here? That might have to be for another day.
IG Post of the Week: Understanding Teenage Lingo
This one has been on my feed for a while, but it’s a goodie. I worked in a middle school library for five years and I can definitely relate.