3 Things Every Student Should Be Able to Do On Google Presentation

September 10, 2014
Google Presentation is one of the powerful presentation tools that students can use to easily create and share slideshows. Its simplicity and its practical performance features makes it an ideal tool for using in class. Besides the different guides and tutorials I published on Google Presentation, today I decided to sketch out 3 main things every student should be able to do. To this end, I am drawing on Susan Oxnevad 's videos that are included in this wonderful interactive ThingLink. Enjoy

1- Using the research tool in Presentations
Google Presentation has a built-in research tool that students can use to conduct a Google search without having to leave the page. They can also narrow down their search to look for only images, scholarly articles, quotes or anything else. Watch Susan's video to learn more about how students can use this integrated research tool to construct their knowledge.

2- Insert a Youtube video into Google Presentations
Videos can also be part of the content of the presentations students create on Google Presentation. There are two ways to insert a video in the presentation. The first one is through doing a YouTube search from within the presentation and the second one is by providing the URL of the YouTube video. Watch this video to learn more on how to insert a video in Google Presentation.

3- Insert an image in a Google Presentation
Students can easily insert images into their presentations using Google's search tool. The good thing about this service is that it helps students look for copyright friendly images. Watch this video to learn how you can use this tool.

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Google Slides for iPad is Finally Out

August 28, 2014
Google Slides for iPad is finally out. As is the case with its precedents Google Sheets and Google Docs, Slides is now available for free download from iTunes app store.

Google Slides app allows you to easily create presentations, edit slides, and collaborate with others on presentations right from your iPad. Other interesting features provided by Google Slides include:

•  Create new presentations or edit any that were created on the web or on another device 
•  Share presentations and work together with others in the same presentation at the same time
•  Open, edit, and save Microsoft PowerPoint files
• Get stuff done anytime -- even without an internet connection
• Add and rearrange slides, format text and shapes, and more
• Present right from your device
• Never worry about losing your work -- everything is automatically saved as you type

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6 Video Tutorials to Help Teachers Use Google Presentation in Class

August 21, 2014
Planning to use Google Presentations with your students this year? The video tutorials below are definitely worth checking. There are a plethora of reasons why you would need to start using this presentation software. First, Google Presentation is web based and therefore does not require any software installation. It is also part of Google Drive productivity suite and as such it is integrated with other services such as Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Drawing. Also, presentations you create on Google Presentation are automatically saved to your Drive and become accessible anywhere you go with an Internet connection. Google has also recently added a bunch of new updates that enhance the overall performance of Presentations among these updates are the ability to crop, edit, and add borders to images.

Here are six video tutorials I selected for you to help you better learn how to create presentations and slideshows using Google Presentations.

1- Creating A Google Presentation

2- Create and Apply A Theme

3- How to Insert Images and Videos in Google Presentations

4- How to Use Animations in Google Presentations

5- Using Links to Other Slides

6- How to Add Sound to Google Presentation

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10 Tips to Design Effective Presentations

July, 2014
Creating effective slide decks that can engage the audience and pull them right in is a task that requires some serious training. This training comes in the form of practice in the key elements that make a better presentation. These elements are: the choice of images used in the slides, the amount of text used with these images, the font and type size of the text, the placement and arrangement of text vis-a-vis the images, and the transitions and effects used in the slides. These elements, if used properly, are enough to make your presentations slick and charming.

TED has recently published a great read in this direction. This is basically an article written by TED staff in which they provided detailed explanations on each of the elements I mentioned above. They also featured some useful tips to help you create engaging presentations. I just could not let this great read go by without sharing it with you here. Below is a round-up of the 10 major tips featured in this TED post, check out the original post for more details on each one of these tips.

• Think about slides last
• Create a consistent look and feel
• Think about topic transitions
• When it comes to text, remember that less is almost always more
• Use photos that enhance learning
• Go easy on the effects and transitions
• Use masking to direct attention in images
• Try panning large images
• For video, don't use auto play
• Reproduce simple charts and graphs

I am also sharing with you this interesting slide presentation I learned through Dawsonite . This presentation outlines a wide variety of tips and tricks on how to design  effective presentations.

Making Effective Slides from Anitra Nottingham

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New:You Can Now Add Audio Feedback To Students Presentations on Google Drive

June 20, 2014
Kaizena is one of my favourite tools for adding audio and text feedback to Google Docs. I have already shared here a detailed guide on how to use it to attach audio feedback to students documents, check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Until recently Kaizena allowed users to add audio feedback to only Google Docs but this is no longer the case. Now Google Presentations are also supported. With this new update, you can easily add audio to the presentations of your students and here is how you can do it. The process is similar to adding audio to Google Docs.

1- First students should share their Google Presentations with you. Whatever students share with you will automatically appear in your Google Drive under the "shared with me" tab.

2- Now head over to Kaizena and sign in.

3- Assuming that you have already created a box on Kaizena where you access students files, click on "add document" on that box

4- Click on " shared with me" and select the presentation you want to add audio feedback to.

5- Highlight the parts of the presentation you want to comment on and click on the mic icon to add voice comment.

Once the voice comment is uploaded students will be able to access it on their Google Drive right from the comment feature when they open their presentation.

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