Did You Know? Must-Have Google Docs/Slides Skills

Google Docs and Slides are 2 of the most used Google apps.  Once you learn to do many things in these 2 apps, you'll find they work with other Google apps as well.  Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning takes you through how to use both of these fantastic apps that are used by most school districts in Kentucky.  

Must-have Google Skills for Teachers (Part 4 Google Docs and Slides)

Google Docs Playlist from KATE

Google Slides Playlist from KATE

Do you want to become more proficient with Google?  Our Google for Education Level 1 Study Guide has videos and resources to help you build your skills at your own pace.  Whether you want to take the certification test or not, if you are working with Google, these skills are essential.  Ready to go beyond the basics?  Here's our Google for Education Level 2 Study Guide.  

Any time you have questions, KATE is here to help.

Did You Know? Autofit Text in Textboxes and Shapes in Google Slides

Have you ever gotten frustrated trying to make your text fit inside a textbox or shape in Slides?  It won't happen again!  Slides will now autofit your text for you.  Check out this tip from Kasey Bell.

Need help with Slides or other edtech tools?  Just let a member of the KATE team know and we'll be there to help!

Did You Know: Engaging Your Students with Interactive Activities

Are you looking to engage your students with some interactive activities?  Here are 2 links to some great ideas to use in either Google Slides or MS PowerPoint.

30 interactive Google Slides activities for classroom excitement

20 interactive PowerPoint activities to add awesome to classes

Most of these are easily adaptable to the college classroom.  Need help?  KATE is here to help.

Friday Matinee: Would You Rather Icebreaker Activity

This is a great activity to start class with or do after a test.  You will have to make a copy of this file to make it your own.  Feel free to change the questions or use it as it is.  Your students will look at each slice and "vote" by dragging a star from above each slide to their answer.  When I create activities like this, I keep a copy of the file as my MASTER, then make a copy for my class to edit.  Their answers may lead to interesting conversations!

Would You Rather

If you want to use this with PowerPoint, just go to FILE > DOWNLOAD AS > CHOOSE MICROSOFT POWERPOINT.  It's that easy!!

Have a great weekend!  You might try "playing" this with family or friends!!

Friday Matinee: How to Create Interactive Google Slides and Lessons

Did you know that you can link not only to outside websites in Google Slides, but also to other slides within your file?  This opens up a number of new ways to use Slides as an activity in your classroom.  Here's how:

How to Create Interactive Google Slides and Lessons

If you remember, we shared a Jeopardy Game that was created in Slides recently and this is how they created it!  Dr. Clemson's EDU 455 classes have been creating High Leverage Practice interactive posters that link to resources on other slides in their file.  It's also how you create eBooks in Slides.

In this activity from Catlin Tucker, she uses this to link from her table of contents to each section in her digital notebook.  

Did You Know? A Quick Tip from KATE

When you are creating a presentation or an activity in Google Slides, sometimes you want the color of your links to be a different color.  Here's how to change it for all of your links in your file so that you don't have to change them one at a time!

Google Slides Quick Tip: Change the Link Color of Your Google Slides Theme

Have fun changing your link colors in Google Slides!  Need help with Google?  Check out our YouTube Channel!  We are adding to it all the time.  Need help?  Just ask!

Did You Know? Publish Your Slide Presentation to the Web Before Sharing in Zoom

According to Kasey Bell from Shake Up Learning, you should share your Google Slides lessons in Google Meet or Zoom by publishing them to the web first.  This gives you a unique link that anyone can view.  It is a full window player, so you only see the slides one at a time.  Use this unique link when sharing your screen in Zoom or Meet instead of clicking on “present.”  The present button goes full screen on your monitor.  This allows you to see more than one window at once, which allows you to see other tabs during your presentation.

Friday Matinee: Creating Digital Notebooks in Google Slides

Yes, you can create and share digital notebooks in Google Slides!  By sharing a digital notebook with your students, you are giving them a place to go to take notes, add images, write a journal, reflect on learning, and add comments and tag you so you'll know they have a question.  

Here's some information on creating digital notebooks with Google Slides.  

• Creating Digital Notebooks with Google Slides
• How to Create Interactive Notebooks in Google Slides
• Free Digital Notebooks with Sections for Slides or PowerPoint
• Free Digital Notebooks for Slides or PowerPoint
• Google Slides Interactive Notebooks + 20 Activities to Fill Them

Did You Know? Adding Images to Docs and Slides

Sometimes you need an image in your Google Doc (or Slides) to help tell your story.  In both Docs and Slides you can use the Explore Tool or choose insert image from the insert menu.  

Here's how to add images in Google Docs.  

It works the same in Slides!

Friday Matinee: Review Jeopardy Game Using Google Slides

It's getting close to the end of the semester and using this Jeopardy template will allow you to either create the game for your class to play as a review or you can let groups of students use it to create the questions and answer then share their game with the rest of the class.  

Jeopardy 5 Topic Template

In order to use this template, go to FILE and choose MAKE A COPY.  Don't forget to "file" it in Google Drive in a folder so that you keep your Drive organized.  You can do this by clicking on the folder icon to the right of the file name at the top right of the screen.  

If you would like to use this template again, I would suggest that you make not 1, but 2 copies of this file.  One I would add the word MASTER to one of them so that you will know that it is your blank template

Did You Know? Easily Crop an Image in Google

Did you know that you can easily crop an image in Google Docs, Slides, or Drawings?  This is a feature we use a lot.  Here's how:

How to Crop an Image in Doc, Slides, or Drawings

Go ahead and get rid of that extra white space or background in your image quickly and easily!

Friday Matinee: Using Google Slides: Jigsaw Activity

 

It's Friday - and it's a long weekend!  That gives you plenty of time to create a Jigsaw activity to use with your class in the near future.  What is a Jigsaw activity?  It breaks your students into groups and your topic into pieces, allowing for each group to work on a given subtopic.  The students then bring their part of the topic puzzle back to the group to put it all together.  You can use the attached Google Slides Jigsaw file as a template to create your own Jigsaw activity.  The video shows you how to edit the file and make it your own. 

The Jigsaw template: http://bit.ly/SlidesJigsaw

The video on how to edit the template:  https://youtu.be/MGTwR2HtX3c

This activity can easily be used during remote learning!  All of your students can edit the file at the same time and communicate with their group using messaging or a video call.  Be aware though that if they are going this during class time that they will have to move to different places to not have audio feedback from multiple microphones and still maintain their social distancing.

Friday Matinee: Two Fun Ideas to Try!

It's been a long week . . . no, make that a long couple of weeks, and the month of August is almost over.  It's time to relax a bit, so we've come up with 2 fun ideas.

First: (drum roll please . . .)

Create a Bitmoji Classroom for your students!

Here's a video on how to do this from the inventor of the Bitmoji craze:

https://youtu.be/XdMWiDWBN1U

and a blog post with lots of information.

You will do this in Google Slides and add images (search for transparent PNG files) and links.  When searching for Bitmojis that will work in your classroom, use the term POSE.  We'll be glad to help if needed.  There are TONS of examples online, just do a search for "bitmoji classroom."

Want to engage your students?  Have them create a Bitmoji scene with links to information about what they are learning.

Turn in your Bitmoji Classroom for the chance to win a PRIZE!

Second:

I'm sure you've heard of Flat Stanley, an activity that is done in many elementary classrooms.  As a fun project, have your students (you can do this too) take photos (could be on campus or of what they did on Labor Day, or their trip to Walmart) and put them into a Google Slides journal (you can change the "paper" size by going to FILE>PAGE SETUP) and add a Bitmoji into the scene and telling about what they were doing.  

Friday Matinee: Google Slides Discussion on Using Google Meet in the Classroom

As many of you know, I've been teaching our students how to use Google and one of the things I had them do this semester was to come up with a way to use Hangouts Meet in their future classroom.  The way I did this was to share a Google Slide deck with a directions slide and another slide that I called the student slide that was set up for them to add their name and their response.  We sometimes call this collaboration slides.  Here is the file that I shared and their responses:

Using Hangouts Meet in the Classroom

This activity can be used in any class and on pretty much any topic where you want students to discuss something and comment on each other's input.  It works very well as an online discussion board and can be easily changed as the topic changes. 

I'm adding a template that includes a basic set of directions and an additional student slide.  These are the only 2 slides available in the slide deck.

Discussion Slides

To use this, go to FILE then choose MAKE A COPY and copy the entire slide presentation.  This makes it yours to use.  I would keep this as your master and make a copy of it every time you use it for a discussion.

You can edit the slide with different backgrounds and text.  Here's a video on how to do that:

Using Collaborative Slides by Creating Master Slides

Friday Matinee: Using Collaboration Slides in Your Classroom

Welcome back and I hope the semester is off to a good start.  I wanted to share with you a way to create a collaborative template that can be used in many ways with your classes.  We demonstrate it with Google Slides, but you should be able to do the same thing in PowerPoint.

The video will show you how to create 2 master slides, one will have your directions on it and the other will be the slide that the students will add to share their answer.  Once students have answered their question on their slide, they can then read and comment on other students slides.  This is great for discussions, for a quick assessment to make sure your students got what you discussed in class, or even to review for a test.  Once you have done this, you can make a copy of the file, quickly edit it, and used it again.  Be sure to give your students editing access to the file so that they can add their slide and comment on others.

The video will start part way in at the point where I discuss this method.

Using Collaboration Slides in Your Classroom

This file will show you how students responded after reading 3 articles on teaching remotely.  We recommend that once you've created this file, that you call this your template or master and make a copy of it each time you want to use it.  That way you'll always have your template that is blank.