Google Slides is one of my favourite educational technology solutions and recently I discovered another extremely useful feature. As an educator, I often want to show my classes just part of YouTube clip. That might be because only part of it is relevant, there is not enough time to show the full clip or it may contain content that might be confronting and I would rather give students the choice to view it if it is not essential for the lesson.
So I’ve messed around with a number of different solutions – none of which seemed to work effectively, much to my frustration. And then, quite by accident, I found out I could set start and end times for YouTube clips embedded in a Google Slides presentation. What a revelation!
See below for full instructions.
Instructions
Open your Google Slides presentation and insert your selected YouTube clip.
Right click the YouTube clip in your presentation.
From the pop-up menu, select “Video options…”
You will see 2 fields where you can enter where you would like the clip to start and finish.
And that’s it! Below is a short video tutorial showing you how it all works.
For this freebie, I thought I’d move beyond language arts and in to STEM (science technology engineering maths). Once again using Google Slides, I have created an interactive, digital workbook based on the scientific method. I like the flexibility of layout in Google Slides which is why it’s probably my most used app.
STEM activities lend themselves to multimedia, as do Google Slides. The workbook has been set up to encourage the inclusion of multimedia. This can either be audio, video and images found online or those created by students as they research and complete their experiment.
The digital workbook can be used as a digitised version of a traditional workbook or can be used as the springboard for a hyperdoc. A hyperdoc is a:
…carefully crafted digital lesson plan…[that is a] visually engaging and packaged learning experience…[for students to] create, collaborate, think critically and connect.
I highly recommend the above website for more ideas on utilising hyperdocs in the Google Classroom and for lots more great freebies!
What’s included in the FREE digital workbook
Created in Google Slides so you can create your own copy to modify and share
An interactive menu to navigate the workbook
A slide for each of the following areas:
Problem
Background research
Hypothesis
Health and safety
Experiment
Results
Conclusion
Instructions on what to include in each section
Links to more detailed explanations in the speaker’s notes
Placeholders for multimedia and links
The screenshot below illustrates the typical structure of each slide:
Scientific method digital workbook screenshot
Accessing the FREE digital workbook
The link below to the template is VIEW ONLY. This means you will need to create a copy IN YOUR OWN GOOGLE DRIVE to be able to edit the file and share the file with your students. To do this use the following menu path:
File > Make a copy…
FREE Google Slides scientific method digital workbook:
Best suited to middle to high school students but can be adapted to all ability and age levels – for example, for student requiring more support, create and add your own mini-YouTube video explanation.
Can be used individually or as part of collaborative projects.
Can be used across platforms including Chromebooks, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. (Not all features available on all platforms).
Use with Google Slides tablet and smartphone apps so students can capture video and photos of their own work into the digital workbook.
Take photos of experiment setups using Google Slides on tablet or smartphone and label using the desktop version (including on Chromebooks).
Encourage students to personalise the workbooks to match their own style.
Record results data in Google Sheets and insert charts into the Results page.
Use the Doctopus add-in to create a copy of the workbook for each student.
Provide teacher or peer feedback using comments.
Distribute the workbook to students via Google Classroom.
Can support science fair projects.
Can be used as evidence of learning as part of project based learning (PBL).
Embed finished workbooks in your school website to share with parents, carers and the community.
Recently I read an interesting article by Christopher Pappas, 8 Tips To Foster Knowledge Sharing Through Online Learning Communities. In the article, the writer looks at ways that online social and collaborative experiences can enhance learning outcomes and improve knowledge sharing in a corporate environment. I was inspired to look at how these strategies might be used in a K-12 environment using Google and G Suite for Education (GSfE) solutions. Of course, the same ideas can be applied to vocational and higher education environments as well. Also, many of the ideas can be implemented without having G Suite for Education (however, you will need access to G Suite for Education to use Google Classroom).
Below is a presentation giving an overview of the strategies and the corresponding Google tools. Read below for more details.
Before you start…
Before you start, you need to think about a few things with regards to your online learning communities.
Who will be part of the community? For example, your class, multiple classes, the whole school, the wider community, etc. It may be that there are multiple online learning communities that are used for different purposes
What is the purpose of the learning community? What are you hoping your students will gain from the experience?
What are the terms of use? It is very important that all participants agree to and understand the community guidelines. These should be simple and clear. Look at the post Collaborating for success with Google Apps for ideas on developing a suitable framework.
Understand which tools are available to you and which aren’t. For excample, Google+ and Google Collections are not always made available in GSfE environments and the terms of service do not allow access to people under the age of 13.
Idea 1: Online forums and groups
Online forums and groups are not a new idea and these can be useful for students to share questions, opinions, knowledge and resources and for teachers to communicate to the whole class or smaller groups. The idea is to create a forum or discussion around a specific topic.
Google tools for forums and groups
Google Classroom allows for posting in the class stream. However, this can get a bit messy although the labelling and filtering feature can make it easier to find topics in the stream.
Google+ Communities is essentially a social media platform and allows discussions and threads. You can control who has access to a Google community. There is a search function.
Google Collections is a feature within Google+. It is a bit like Pinterest. However, only one person can own a collection and post new items to the collection but other users can comment on items in the collection. For more on using Google Collections, see the post 5 tips for using Google+ Collections at school.
YouTube allows for commenting. If you or your students upload videos and mark ‘Unlisted’, only people with the link can view them and comment on them.
Idea 2: Collaboration projects
Working on projects together with peers helps build belonging as well as developing communication and teamwork skills. The good news is many Google tools were made for collaboration!
Google tools for collaboration projects
Google Drive, particularly Slides and Docs. One student or the teacher creates the file and then invites the other group members to edit the file. The built in revision history feature makes it easy to see who has done what.
Blogger is a powerful and often overlooked tool. You can make your audience and collaborators as wide or as narrow as you like.
Idea 3: Peer-based learning teams
This is an important emerging concept, the idea of learning to learn. Peer-based learning teams encourage students to create individual learning goals and place students in teams to support each other in achieving their goals.
Google tools for peer-based learning teams
Google Hangouts allows students to ‘get together’ on line to provide feedback via video, audio or messaging.
Google Drive, particularly Docs and Slides, allows students to document their goals, progress and barriers with the comments feature enabling the peer team to provide assistance, feedback and encouragement.
Google+ Communities allows the peer team to create a private community to provide and ask for support and feedback.
Blogger allows for the creation of a blog shared only amongst the peer learning team. Students can share their learning goals and progress as well as commenting on the posts of others in the group to provide feedback.
Idea 4: Micro-learning library
Ditch the outdated text books! As students learn about a topic and become emerging experts, create a crowd sourced ‘learning library’ of resources that can be used by current and future students.
Google tools for a micro-learning library
Google Drive (Docs, Slides) can be a handy repository for useful links, just give students editing privileges to the file.
Google+ Communities is a useful way to share resources, documents, pictures, etc, providing a preview and allowing for a description. Students can search for specific information using the search feature.
Blogger is an easy-to-use repository for many different kinds of resources including links, written information, embedded videos and Google Drive files.
Google Classroom allows users to share links to the class stream, allowing the sharing of resources. If you use Google Chrome, the Share to Classroom extension makes it even easier to share a relevant webpage. Be careful of cluttering up your class stream.
Idea 5: Learner blogs
Learner blogs can help document the pathway to knowledge and skills development. It allows the sharing of useful knowledge with peers and provide proof-of-learning. They are multi-modal, allowing students to express themselves in different ways.
Google tools for learner blogs
Google Sites are easy to use and allow users to easily combine text, embedded videos, images and Google Drive files. It is easy to create attractive websites but the features are limited at the time of writing.
Blogger is a traditional blogging platform (as the name would suggest!) You can take control of how wide the audience is (down to individual users) and allows for multimedia as well as text.
QR code is short for ‘quick response’ code. It is a type of bar code that can be scanned by a smartphone or tablet that has the required app installed needed to interpret the QR code. QR codes are being used for:
manufacturing
tracking items
promotions and advertising
product labelling
QR codes in education have been on the fringes of ’emerging’ technology for a while. There are some educators who swear by them and use them in interesting ways to create engaging and effective learning experiences. Now, Google have added a feature to the Chrome app on iOS allowing users to scan QR codes without needing an extra app! This is great for users of G Suite for Education and educators operating in a locked down tech environment that does not allow you to add apps to iPads or iPods.
The great news is QR code technology and ideas are not hard to understand and there are plenty of resources and ideas to have you up and running today. All you need is an iPad, iPod or iPhone and an updated version of Chrome (plus a teeny pit of prep/printing).
Note: other operating systems can also scan QR codes but you will need a separate app that will scan the code.
Using QR codes in the classroom
The good news is many educators have shared their ideas and resources on using QR codes in the classroom so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Below is a Pinterest board of resources to get you started.
One of my favourite QR code activities is the scavenger hunt. It can be used across many subject areas and gets students up and moving.
If you have an up-to-date version of the Chrome app on your iOS device (iPad, iPod or iPhone) you have everything you need to start scanning QR codes – no separate apps needed.
There are 2 ways of accessing the QR code scanning feature in Chrome:
3D touch of the Chrome icon (newer devices)
Using spotlight search and searching for ‘QR’
The short video below takes you through step-by-step on using both of these methods.
Gamification and badges in education have been ideas floating around for a few years now. Some educators have jumped on the band wagon only to abandon the concept soon after. Often, one of the obstacles to effective implementation is proper technological support (1). The good news is Google Forms is a relatively simple (and free!) tool to help implement gamification elements into education.
What are “badges” & “gamification“?
Badges in education and the idea of gamification is one way teachers can help motivate students in the classroom and help students keep track of effort and achievement.
Gamification can be defined as:
the concept of applying game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals.
The idea is much like the concept behind the Scouts movement – achieve something, earn a badge. Many popular video games also use a badge system, and many of our students enjoy and understand this way of measuring achievement. So it makes sense to use a badges systems in the classroom.
To find out more about using badges in the classroom, have a look at this article:
Automating gamification & badges in education on a (very!) limited budget
Gamification and badges in the learning environment has been of interest to me for sometime. However, within the learning environment I have been working with, the concept would be very labour intensive to implement and track. While playing around with Google Forms, an idea came to me – surely Google Apps script could be used in a self-marking quiz to send a badge to a supplied email address if a certain score was achieved in the quiz?
So I wrote an algorithm and found some potential providers on Fiverr.com. I contacted them to outline what I wanted. Within hours I had settled with the wonderful Riyafaahf who provided me exactly what I wanted in less than a day.
And below you’ll be able to grab the code and instructions for yourself.
Automating badges in Google Forms
How it works
The student completes a self-marking quiz in Google forms and provides an email address. If the student achieves a certain mark, they will receive a badge via email.
Here is a simple, sample quiz for you to try out and see how it works (don’t worry, I won’t ever use your email address for anything else):
Access to Google Forms (either through Google Drive or G Suite for Education)
Student email addresses (they do not have to be Gmail)
An image for your badge (this will be emailed to the student should they achieve a certain score) saved to your Google Drive
The code on this page
The file ID for your Google Sheet where quiz responses will be collected and the file ID of the badge file (don’t worry, getting these is easy – see the video if you’re not sure)
Devices for students to respond to the form (works well across most platforms including smart phones and tablets)
Planning
It might be a good idea to start off with a smaller topic area with a few quizzes (and badges). This allows you to test the waters and the technology. Your badges with be based on the required student outcomes.
It might also be a good idea to think about what you would like students to do with the badges they collect. One simple idea is having each student create a simple eportfolio in Google Slides to save their badges in.
Tips for setting up your quiz in Google Form
Watch video tutorial for visual step-by-step instructions.
You need to save your Google Form as a self-marking quiz and make sure the responses are being collected into a Google Sheet.
Make sure you are collecting email addresses. This can be done by asking for an email address in the quiz (use data validation to ensure the address provided appears valid) or selecting the option to collect email addresses in a G Suite for Education school.
Mark all questions as “required”.
Select “Make this a quiz” in the form settings.
Go through each question and add your points and select the correct answer.
Adding the “Send badge” code
Watch video tutorial for visual step-by-step instructions.
This adds the badge ‘magic’ – sending the badge to the student’s email once they submit their responses.
Below is the code, ready for you to insert your information. You will need to copy it, paste it into your Google Form Script Editor and replace the variable information with your information.
If your browser does not select the code automatically, select all the code from line 1 to line 21 and copy it.
function onSubmit(e) {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById(e.source.getDestinationId()).getSheets()[0];
//var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById("REPLACEwithGoogleSheetsFileID").getSheets()[0];
var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
var score = sheet.getRange(lastRow, 3).getValue();
var email = sheet.getRange(lastRow, 2).getValue();
var subject = "REPLACE with Email Subject";
if(score>7){
var body = "REPLACE with Your Email Message.";
var id ="REPLACEwithYourBadgeFileID";
var fileBlob = DriveApp.getFileById(id).getBlob();
GmailApp.sendEmail(email, subject, body, {
attachments: [fileBlob]
});
}else{
var url = "https://goo.gl/forms/REPLACEwithYourFormURL"
var body = "Good try at the quiz. Have another try to improve your score and earn your solar system expert badge. You can access the quiz at "+ url;
GmailApp.sendEmail(email, subject, body);
}
}
To paste the code into your form:
Go to your Google Form
Click on the 3 dots at the top right of the screen
Select select <> Script Editor…
File > New > Project
Paste the code
Give your project a name
Replace variable information as required (see table below)
Click on Resources > Current Project’s Triggers
Click to add a new trigger. The triggers should look as follows (should be the default):
Review and authorise permissions
You will need to change all or some of the following information for the variables (depending on how your form and spreadsheet are set up). The table below should help you work out what you need to replace.
[table id=3 /]
Test your form
Watch video tutorial for visual step-by-step instructions.
Make sure you test your form before you unleash it on your students. Use the preview button to respond to the form. Check to make sure you get the badge when you answer the right number of questions correctly and you DON’T get the badge when don’t get enough questions right.
Sharing your form
Watch video tutorial for visual step-by-step instructions.
Once you’ve tested your quiz and everything is working okay, you are ready to share! You can email a link or provide a written link. I find the Google Forms URL shortener pretty clunky so I usually use bit.ly and create a custom, easy to understand URL.
Video tutorial: Automating gamification in education with Google Forms
There are lots of different ways to use Google Drive apps in the classroom. Google Slides offers many possibilities. One way of using Google Slides in the classroom is developing digital student workbooks that include different types of activities. You can take a static, paper based, black and white worksheet or workbook and make it interactive and colourful, incorporating different ways of engaging with information and demonstrating understanding.
Items you can include in your digital workbook include:
words and images (I know, obvious)
multimedia including YouTube videos
links to other resources
short answer activities
drag and drop activities
extended response activities
links to a quiz in Google Forms
links to a Google Classroom
collaborative activities
student portfolio
The ability to create drag and drop activities is particularly appealing. Below is a short video tutorial showing you how to create drag and drop activities in your workbook that prevent student from accidentally moving the wrong elements on the page. This is done by using the “Slide > Background image” feature of Google Slides.
Advantages of digital workbooks with Google Slides
Free!
Reduce paper.
Easy to distribute via your preferred method. For example, email, Google Drive sharing, Google Classroom.
Does not require G Suite for Education (just Google Drive).
Can differentiate by developing different versions for students aiming to achieve at different levels.
Ability to incorporate different learning activities.
Free sample digital workbook
Below is a link to the sample workbook shown in the video. Feel free to make a copy for yourself and use it as you like:
Another month and another handy feature update in Google Classroom. This feature was first released for Android and is now also available for iOS. Students can create blank PDFs and submit them as part of an assignment in Google Classroom. Students can annotate their blank PDFs freehand using pen, marker and highlighter tools as well as a text tool. (At the time of writing, this feature was not available for the web/Chrome OS versions of Google Classroom).
There are many useful applications for these blank PDFs in Google Classroom. Students can now draw, draft or design directly within Google Classroom. The zoom in and out feature can make it easier for students with poor handwriting to write information (particularly useful for mathematics). Students can use either their fingers or a stylus.
The short video below show how the tool can be used from a student’s perspective.
This is a terrific feature that adds to the flexibility and usefulness of Google Classroom. Users can now annotate PDFs and Google Drive documents distributed via Google Classroom. How might this be used in your classroom?
Students can highlight and annotate their work for study purposes without the need to print it out, saving money and avoiding lost work.
Students can take photos and annotate them for the assignments.
Distribute digital interactive notebooks and worksheets.
For students with poor fine motor skills and difficulty hand writing, the annotation feature in Google Classroom allows them to zoom in and write in a big space rather than having to cram writing into smaller spaces which can sometimes happen with paper based activities.
Annotate with or without a stylus.
As other ideas come up, I will add them to the list. Feel free to share your own!
Below is a video tutorial outlining the features of annotations in Google Classroom from the student’s perspective. The document used is a Google Slides presentation.
Google Slides is one of my everyday go-to tools in Google Apps for Education (GAfE) and Google Drive. It is so versatile and easy to use. As an educator, it makes it easy to put together and distribute information and content. It is also a great app for students to show evidence of learning or to curate a portfolio.
One way to use Google Slides is to create mini-lessons that students can go through at their own pace. They are also useful in ‘flipped classrooms’ and other blended learning approaches.
Mini-lessons are presentations that contain content that students need to know and include some sort of navigation, like a menu, and, ideally, some sort of activity, like a quiz, for students to complete to check for understanding.
Below is a sample mini-lesson designed for illustrative purposes and below that are the 6 easy steps to creating your very own mini-lesson as well as a video tutorial. The content in this mini-lesson has been copied from Wikipedia (not recommended!)
6 Easy steps to create a mini-lesson
1. Create your Google Slides presentation
Login to Google Drive and create a new Google Slides presentation.
2. Write your content
Don’t forget to leave a menu slide so you can go back and create your menu links when you have completed your content.
As well as text, you can include images, videos and links to external content.
As this is intended as a mini-lesson designed to be consumed by an individual rather than a presentation, you can include a lot more text than you normally would in a presentation but be careful about making it look too crowded.
3. Create your menu
Once you have completed your content, go back to your blank menu page and add buttons for links to the different topics in your mini-lesson.
To make your buttons clickable go to:
Insert > Link… > Slides in this presentation > Select the slide to link to
See the video tutorial for a demonstration.
4. Add your “return to menu” button
Create your return to menu button using shapes or inserting an image into one of your content slides. Insert the link to your menu slide:
Insert > Link… > Slides in this presentation > Select the slide to link to
Copy your button to the other content slides
Note: ideally, you would add the return to menu button in the slide layout in slide master view. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, when you view the presentation normally, the link is not clickable.
See the video tutorial for a demonstration.
5. (optional) Add a link to the student activity
For example, this could be a link to a quiz created in a Google Form.
See the video tutorial for a demonstration.
6. Distribute your mini-lesson
Test your mini-lesson first to make sure all the links are doing the right thing.
There are different ways you can distribute your mini-lesson. These include:
Use the “Share” option to email a link recipients
Use the “Publish to the web” options to embed the presentation in, for example, a blog or Google Site
See the video tutorial for a demonstration.
Video tutorial: Creating interactive mini-lessons in Google Slides
I have long been a fan of the ebook and have often created and distributed them to support my training and teaching activities. I have also at different times published and sold ebooks (look me up on the iBooks store!). Google Apps for Education makes it easy for both students and teachers to create attractive ebooks that can be shared in a number of formats.
Here are 6 tips to help you (or your class) create your first ebook using Google Apps for Education. These techniques are just as useful to anyone looking to self-publish an ebook, including general users of the free Google Drive and Google Apps for Work users.
1. Why create ebooks, anyway?
Ebooks can fulfil a number of purposes including:
Creating an eportfolio of a student’s work (or a number of students’ work).
Using students to ‘crowd source’ the creation of resources and text books, created for the target audience by the target audience.
Can be used by students of all ability levels.
Developing relevant 21st century skills.
Easily show evidence of learning to a wide audience (including parents) in an environmentally friendly way.
Create your own text books and resources that you can easily update and distribute.
2. What app should I use?
The app that will provide you with maximum flexibility in terms of presentation and layout is Google Slides, particularly if you are combining text and images.
This is not the perfect book publishing solution but allows for a lot of flexibility and creativity without a steep learning curve.
3. What size should my ebook be?
There is no ‘standard’ ebook size. It’s probably a good idea, though, to set-up the pages in portrait orientation and in you standard printer size, i.e., A4 or Letter depending on what part of the world you are in.
[table id=1 /]
Here is a short tutorial showing you how to change the page size in Google Slides.
4. How can I make sure my ebook looks good?
Do your homework. Investigate websites, books, ebooks, posters, etc, that you like the look of and use them as inspiration for your style, fonts and layouts.
There are also lots of online tools to help you select colour schemes that look good together and even give you the hexadecimal colour code to be able to put in your colour choosers in Google Slides.
Whilst you can have multiple page layouts within your ebook (for example, 1 large picture, 1 large column text, 2 smaller pictures with 2 even columns of text, 1 smaller picture with 2 uneven columns of text, etc) use the same basic elements throughout:
1 font style for page headings
1 font style for subheadings
1 font style for your body text
3 to 5 colours for your colour scheme
Make sure your inside covers are blank and you have the ‘half page title‘ to make your book look authentic.
Below is a video on how to easily create page layouts for your ebook in Google Slides (note: all images used are either my own photos or public domain imaged from Pixabay):
5. What platform should I use to create my ebook?
Although you can create your ebook on mobile versions of Google Slides (e.g., iPads or Android tablets) you will get the most flexibility and creativity using the full version through Google Chrome (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac and Chromebook).
That doesn’t mean you can’t ‘mix and match’ devices. For example, do most of your editing using a Windows computer but use the iPad version to take photos and add them straight into the pages of your ebook.
The great thing is, you don’t have to stick to just one format!
Share the actual Google Slides file (view only)
Embed the Google Slides file into a website or blog (File > Publish to the web… > Embed)
Save the file as a PDF to easily view on most devices and platforms (File > Download as > PDF document)
PDF results in the most attractive ebook (I don’t know why, try it for yourself and see!) and, depending on the size, can be emailed or made available to download from a website or blog.
More resources
Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning: