We have had several months at my school to consider the mission, vision, and goals we have under our new principal, Mr. Akers. In one of our staff meetings, he mentioned how Central Office was highlighting schools with pictures of students and it really was a nice way to make it feel more personal. I had an idea to create several poster size collages using Canva to showcase our students. I talked to Mr. Akers about it and wanted to include pictures of as many students as possible – doing events like Band, Choir, Health Pathway activities, Flag Corp, STLP, KYA, Spirit Days and so much more!! He loved the idea. I spent one of our snow days working on the project. I downloaded over 100 pictures from our school facebook page, ensuring that all the students pictures had approval for posting. I found different templates in Canva and had to manipulate some of the pictures so they would not cut out faces or show non-essential parts of the pictures.
I was thankful to Jamie Saylor and others for spending the time with our cadre showing us ways to use Canva. After i was able to download the collages, Mr. Akers showed me how to make the posters on our school poster maker. We decided to have them laminated and hot glued them to the main hallway in our school.
The best part about doing this was watching the student reactions as they looked at the pictures and looked for their faces. I want every student at our school to feel like they are seen and loved. Just like I have pictures of my own children in my home, I wanted pictures of our AMS Family in our building. I have noticed that since I made these collages, grade levels are making their own in a similar way.
Greta Gilbert
James D. Adams Middle School
Floyd County Schools
6-8
