2020, The Overwhelming Unforgettable Year! By Krystèl Yaacoub, on 31/12/2020
When I look back at 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, the severe economic crisis, and the heartbreaking Beirut blast, I recognize that besides the sadness, heartbreaks, and disappointments I went through, I learned a lot of valuable lessons that no one could have taught me except 2020!
I’ve learned to never take basic things for granted; a family, a job, a healthy body, a breathing lung, a beating heart… These are God’s most beautiful graces!
I’ve learned that blessings are waking up in the morning with a roof over my head knowing that my beloved ones are all fine!
I’ve learned that I don’t always have the chance to say goodbye; in a blink of an eye, people leave. Some of them leave to a place of eternal sunshine and some others simply take a different path. And I may never know when the last time I see them is!
7 Valuable Lessons I Learned in 2020
I’ve learned that being alone is not loneliness and that self-care is one of the best gifts I can offer myself! By staying home for months due to lockdowns, I caught up with my hobbies: playing guitar, blogging, writing, discovering new wines, etc. These hobbies, in addition to my breathing exercise routine and praying, helped me beat the mental and emotional breakdowns I encountered during these tough times!
I’ve learned to honor my feelings and to accept my not-okayness. It’s okay not to be okay and to feel tired, sad, anxious, or upset at times. I’m not a robot programmed to be happy 24/7!
I’ve learned that true friends are united by soul and not by body. 2020, with its virtual aspect, has deepened our friendship and made us closer than ever before!
7 Valuable Lessons I Learned in 2020
Last but not least, I’ve learned that forever is an illusion and that love is a moment. What matters are the beautiful moments I share with my partner in the present, regardless of what tomorrow may bring!
Now, I’m moving into 2021 with gratitude for the lessons I learned, the maturity I acquired, and the strength I gained. With gratitude for the dark that helped me appreciate the light and for the beautiful people who fought with me through last year’s challenges and with whom I’m ready for a new journey!
Hello 2021! ✨
7 Valuable Lessons I Learned in 2020
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7 Valuable Lessons I Learned in 2020
by Krystèl Yaacoub
Are you searching for innovative PowerPoint games to deliver your content? Check this educational football game that you can smoothly integrate into your classroom! Using an interactive board, teachers can test their students’ knowledge while having fun!
How to play this exciting Educational Football Game?
Divide your students into 2 teams where every student has the chance to choose a player and answers his question. If the answer is correct, his team will get a star. At the end of the game, the winning team is the one with the most stars.
As the festive season is here, have a look at these outstanding bitmoji Christmas ideas developed by the Lebanese educator Donna Yazbeck and get them from our bitmoji store!
Bitmoji Christmas Ideas
Bitmoji Christmas Preschool Classroom
Download the bitmoji Christmas preschool classroom template here!
Bitmoji Christmas show
Download the bitmoji Christmas show template here!
Are you teaching online and facing challenges with your students’ engagement and participation? Here are some interesting collaboration tools for distance learning that add interactivity to your online sessions and enhance your students’ learning experience.
5 Collaboration Tools for Distance Learning:
Flipgrid
Flipgridis a simple, free, and accessible video discussion experience where teachers can create discussion topics and share them with learners. From their side, learners respond to these topics by recording and sharing short videos with their teacher and classmates.
Pear Deck
Pear Deck allows teachers to create interactive presentations by adding multiple-choice questions, drag and drop activities, drawing activities, text and numbers responses, and websites’ links to their presentations to create active learning and formative assessment opportunities. When learners respond, teachers can see the outcomes in real-time and share with the class, to promote class discussions and drive students’ engagements.
EdPuzzle
EdPuzzle allows teachers to choose videos from YouTube, Khan Academy, and other websites or use their own videos to track students’ comprehension by adding their own voice narration and questions. Also, they can check if students are watching the videos, how many times they’re watching each section, and if they’re understanding the content.
Nearpod
Nearpod, one of the greatest collaboration tools for distance learning, helps educators develop interactive lessons that contain quizzes, polls, videos, collaborate boards, open-ended questions, matching pairs, and more to check students’ understanding. They can access thousands of pre-built K-12 standards-aligned lessons or upload their own lessons and make them interactive. All Nearpod Lessons can be shared as a tab in Microsoft Teams, making it easy for students to access the lesson content quickly and easily.
Padlet
Padlet, one of the most interesting collaboration tools for distance learning, is an online “virtual wall” tool where learners can share thoughts on a common topic. It’s like a piece of paper, but on the Web where collaborators can simultaneously create and organize posts of any content type, whether it be text, documents, images, videos, audio, or links.
The bitmoji virtual classroom that we shared in an earlier post is also one of the interesting collaboration tools for Microsoft Teams. You may check a step-by-step tutorial on how to create it here.
Using bitmoji classrooms during distance learning is now trending. Check out these bitmoji classroom templates developed by the dedicated Lebanese educator Donna Yazbeck and get them here! You can also find amazing bitmoji classroom ideas in our store!