Say hello to.....
Did I tell you I love technology? Yep, I do. Actually, I love technology when it makes sense to incorporate technology in education (and in life). I don't just love it to be in love. I've got love with P and O. I'll write about them another day.
Each Tuesday, Upcycled Education will highlight an interesting technology, web resource, gadget or program all related to technology. Of course, since this is an education blog, everything I/we share will be related to teaching and learning.
Up first, a free web resource that is easy to use and naturally engaging. Let me just say, Dafont is da bomb. Who doesn't appreciate the "right" font? Who doesn't naturally feel engaged when something has a WOW factor? Who doesn't love something that appeals to visual learners? According to Dunn and Dunn (Ken and Rita, if I could act so informally, though I did meet Rita Dunn once at a conference), most of the world's learners are visual. Why not appeal to them, no?
Dafont does just that. It is a free, font web resource full of hundreds of fonts for just the right occasion, presentation or lame worksheet. Although, once you download and use their fonts, all lameness shall cease. Basically it's simple. You go to Dafont. Browse through their hundreds of well-organized font categories. Choose your favorite and click download. All the fonts are free and if you are feeling generous, you can donate for your use (though, I have not ever done so....). I found this YouTube video explaining how to download and extract the fonts incredibly useful. I must admit, without the video I might have been a touch lost for a while. The video, by the way, is just 1.5 minutes long (though, it appears to be three minutes long...wrong!).
Here are some of my favorite fonts....
SPECIAL NOTE: Under the "dingbats" category is the "SEXY" font. Oh my. Do not click on the link in public! Let's just say even our high school health education teachers will have a hard time using the fonts listed there. Thus, Dafont should NOT be shared with our preK-12 audience. Let's call this a "teacher" resource, shall we?
From my vast experience, I do not use special fonts for presentations, like PowerPoints, unless I know the font is available on the computer I am presenting on in the classroom. If the font you are using for a presentation (or worksheet) is not available on the computer you are using, the font will default to a regular font like Ariel or Times New Roman (booo!). To remedy this, either....
- Download the fonts at school and at home, so your favorite fonts are available in both locations/computers.
- Stay away from special fonts in your work when you are unsure if the font will default or not.
- For creating worksheets/handouts, I generally create the handout at home with my Dafonts and then PDF the document (vs. saving it only as a ".doc"). In the PDF form, your cool, wow fonts stay as is.
Enjoy Dafonts!
Signing off for Tech Tuesday,
Jen
