Tag: google slides

Adding Audio to Google Slides

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What:

Google Slides users everywhere have long been requesting a feature to add audio to slides and Google for Education finally came through with the option to add audio to a slide. The only issue is that Google has not created an internal tool to record the audio. Therefore, here are four web-based free audio recording tools (source). 

ChromeMP3 Recorder is a simple tool that is a web app that only runs on Chromebooks. A brief how-to is located below (source). 

  • First, install the “ChromeMP3 Recorder” web app. You can get the Chrome Web Store link on the site at https://www.hablacloud.com/
  • Once the web app has been installed, you can open it from the Chromebook app launcher when needed.
  • When the app opens, simply click the red “Record” button to start recording.
  • You can click the “Pause” button if needed during recording.
  • When done, click the “Stop” button.
  • The app will now ask you where you want to save the MP3 file in your Google Drive. You can also name the file at this point to make it easier to find later.

Online Voice Recorder is another easy tool but this one is a website that runs on Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs. A brief how-to is located below (source). 

  • Go to the site at: https://online-voice-recorder.com/
  • Click the mic button to start recording.
  • Note: you will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
  • Click the “Stop” button when done.
  • You will now get a screen where you can preview your voice recording.
  • If needed, you can trim the start and end of the audio to remove any extra dead space.
  • When done, click “Save“.
  • The MP3 file will be downloaded to your device!

Beautiful Audio Editor is easy to use and has lots of extra features for editing. A brief how-to is located below (source). 

  • Launch the tool at: https://beautifulaudioeditor.appspot.com/app
  • Click the “Record” button at the bottom of the screen to start recording.
  • Note: you will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
  • Click the “Stop” button when done.
  • Your recorded track will now be added to the editor.
  • You can drag the play head back to the start and press the play button to preview your recording.
  • If you need to trim out any of the audio, you will need to use the “Split Section” and “Remove Section” buttons in the top toolbar.
  • When you are happy with the audio, you can click the “Download as MP3” button to generate a link to save the file to your device.

Twisted Wave is a more robust audio recording tool with lots of features that allows you to record up to five minutes at a time. A brief how-to is located below (source). 

  • Go to the website at: https://twistedwave.com/online
  • Click “New document” to create a new file..
  • Click the red “Record” button to start recording.
  • Note: you will need to give it permission to use your microphone the first time you use the site.
  • Click the “Stop” button when done.
  • Your recorded track will now be added to the editor.
  • You can click at the start of your clip and press the “Play” button to preview your recording.
  • If you need to trim out any of the audio, you can click and drag with your mouse to select the portion you want to get rid of, and then press your “Delete” button.
  • When you are happy with the audio, you can download it my clicking “File” then “Download“.
  • Better yet, to save it directly to your Google Drive you can click “File” then “Save to Google Drive“. TwistedWave will ask you to log in with your Google account and give permission.

Next Steps

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides users everywhere have long been requesting a feature to add audio to slides and Google for Education finally came through with the option to add audio to a slide. The only issue is that Google has not created an internal tool to record the audio. Therefore, here are four web-based free audio recording tools (source). 

@hollandkaylah

Make Your Presentations Stand Out!

What:

Presentations are a great way to present information to students in a different way and help teachers stay on track with their lesson. As discussed in previous posts, Google Slides has tons of hidden gems to make it far more than a simple presentation tool but sometimes all you need is a simple presentation. However, if you are like me, I like things to look pretty so through the years I have found a few templates that I love to use over and over again for use in my classes and in presentations at conferences. The following list provides the top three websites I recommend for finding excellent and free presentation templates for Google Slides, Powerpoint, and Keynote.

Slides Carnival:

Slides Carnival offers free templates for Google Slides and Powerpoint with categories that include: formal, inspirational, creative, simple, startup, elegant, playful, and business. Slides Carnival updates their templates on a regular basis. Each template includes 25 slides with headers, graphs, charts, and tables as well as a slide with over 80 customizable icons. Slides Carnival even allows you to search their templates by color.

Slides Gala: 

Slides Gala offers free templates for Google Slides, Powerpoint, and Keynote with categories that include: business, playful, formal, startup, elegant, inspirational, and simple. Slides Gala even includes templates with infographics for Powerpoint. The templates are fully editable which means you can choose a template and change the colors, texts, and photos to match your content needs. The templates include numerous slides with headers, charts, graphs, columns, and images. 

Slides Go:

Slides Go offers free template for Google Slides and Powerpoint with categories that are more career-based including recent, popular, education, business, marketing, medical, and general. Slides Go templates are completely editable and easy to modify. They include numerous slides with graphics and maps along with over one thousand icons customized to the theme of each template.  

Next Steps

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Presentations are a great way to present information to students in a different way and help teachers stay on track with their lesson. As discussed in previous posts, Google Slides has tons of hidden gems to make it far more than a simple presentation tool but sometimes all you need is a simple presentation. However, if you are like me, I like things to look pretty so through the years I have found a few templates that I love to use over and over again for use in my classes and in presentations at conferences. The following list provides the top three websites I recommend for finding excellent and free presentation templates for Google Slides, Powerpoint, and Keynote.

@hollandkaylah

Hidden Gems in Google Slides (Post 5 of 5): Add-ons

What:

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. With the help of add-ons, Google Slides can be taken to the next level of presentation tools using add-ons that offer icons, images, and even a formative assessment tool allowing you to manage how students engage with your Google Slides presentation. There are so many add-ons to choose from but this post will look specifically at Icons by Noun Project, Unsplash, and Pear Deck. 

Why: 

Icons by Noun Project is an add-on that gives you access to over 1 million icons to make your Slides presentation more modern and appealing to visual learners. The Unspalsh add-on gives you access to an entire library of copyright-free, high-resolution images. Finally, Pear Deck is an add-on that allows your slide deck to become an innovative formative assessment tool. Pear Deck can turn your slide into an engaging conversation by including bell ringers, interactive questions, and checks for understanding. You can also create custom questions including texts, numbers, and multiple choice. When presenting, you will see student responses to each designed assessment to quickly gauge their understanding of the material being presented. Pear Deck offers a free version as well as a paid premium per year version. 

How to:

In order to obtain an add-on, open the desired Google Slide deck and click add-ons on the top navigation bar. Choose get add-ons and search for and choose the specific add-on desired. Once it opens click the blue +free button (shown in the image below). Choose your Google account or sign in to your Google account when prompted and click allow. You can access the chosen add-on by again clicking on add-ons in the top navigation bar and hovering over the add-on you just obtained. Add-ons then differ, some say start, others say launch, while others say open. Most add-ons will open on the right-hand side of the page when you click start/launch/open. 

Next Steps:

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. With the help of add-ons, Google Slides can be taken to the next level of presentation tools using add-ons that offer icons, images, and even a formative assessment tool allowing you to manage how students engage with your Google Slides presentation. There are so many add-ons to choose from but this post will look specifically at Icons by Noun project, Unsplash, and Pear Deck.  

@hollandkaylah

Hidden Gems in Google Slides (Post 4 of 5): Creating a Table of Contents

What:

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. Slides can also be used to curate content for students (much like Hyperdocs) and can be used to create eBooks. The organizational tool for both of these options is the ability to create a table of contents.  

Why: 

A table of contents in Google Slides is extremely helpful when creating eBooks or helping users navigate through content. A table of contents is also extremely easy to create in Google Slides. 

How to:

Once you have completed creating your entire slide deck, add a slide to the beginning. Type in a table of contents page using the names for each slide (no slide numbers needed). Highlight the first option and click command/control K on your keyboard and choose Slides in this presentation (see image below). Select the slide that you want the text to navigate to and click apply. Repeat for each set of texts and slides. 

PRO TIP: Name each slide by using a text box at the top of the page. The name will generate in the “Slides in this presentation” box so you will not have to remember which slide number matches each word. 

Next Steps:

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. Slides can also be used to curate content for students (like Hyperdocs) and can be used to create eBooks. The organizational tool for both of these options is the ability to create a table of contents.  

@hollandkaylah

Hidden Gems in Google Slides (post 2 of 5): Inserting Charts

What:

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. You can use Google Slides as a tool to assess student knowledge or obtain feedback through inserting charts from live Google Forms. 

Why: 

Google Forms is a wonderful tool able to obtain feedback, assess students, or simply obtain information. This information is best used when able to access quickly and easily within Google Slides. Connecting a chart in Forms to Slides requires a one time setup and then a refresh on the slide in Google Slides before presenting. I have personally used this many times to assess student knowledge. As an English Literature teacher, I created a bell-ringer/beginning of the class activity. Students used Forms to answer questions in class that came from the homework the night before. Once class began my Google Slides deck was ready to go. Once all students completed the questions, I clicked update on my slide and presented the chart to the whole class. I could then see which questions were readily understood and which questions needed to be discussed. 

How to:

The setup for inserting charts into Google Slides begins in Forms. Create a Form with a handful of questions. Once finished, open the response Google Sheet that accompanies the Form. Once in the Sheet highlight the column for the first question, click Insert then select Chart. You can customize the chart to fit the specific needs for that question. Then, open the Google Slide deck and once on the desired slide click Insert>Chart>From Sheets>Select the chart you just enabled in Sheets. If no one has completed the Form the data will be empty. Repeat these steps for each question. That’s it! You then can give the link to the Form to your students and when ready click the update button on that slide and present the data.  

TIP: I taught several class periods and created a Google Form and Google Slide deck for each class period so the data would stay true to each class. Otherwise, the data will not be unique to each class and by 7th period will not be helpful. 

Next Steps:

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. You can use Google Slides as a tool to assess student knowledge or obtain feedback through inserting charts from live Google Forms. 

@hollandkaylah

Hidden Gems in Google Slides (post 1 of 5): Stop Motion Animation Videos

What:

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. Google Slides can also be used to create stop motion animation videos. Stop motion animation brings static objects to life. You can create stop motion animation easily through Google Slides by duplicating slides and moving the static objects.

Why: 

Stop motion animation is a great assignment for students to complete for various projects including telling a story, visualizing a historical event, demonstrating a scientific concept, and more. Creating stop motion animation videos engages students and allows them to move from consuming content to creating content. 

How to:

Creating a stop motion animation video can be as easy or as complicated as you want. The easy example shows clouds moving to cover the sun. The first slide was created to include the tulips, sun, and three clouds. The three clouds were selected and grouped to move as one image. The first slide was then duplicated and the clouds were moved a little to the left on the second slide. The second slide was then duplicated and the clouds were moved to the left again. The process was repeated until the clouds covered the sun. Once the slides were finished they needed to be published by clicking file and choosing publish to the web. It is best to choose to advance slides every second unless the stop motion animation video includes a voiceover and then the advancement of the slides should match the voice over. Once the slide deck is published, copy and paste the link into a new window in order to see the movement of the clouds. 

Next Steps:

Interested in learning more? Check out the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides is far more than a presentation tool. Google Slides can also be used to create stop motion animation videos. Stop motion animation brings static objects to life. You can create stop motion animation easily through Google Slides by duplicating slides and moving the static objects.

@hollandkaylah

Publish an eBook with Google Slides

What:

Google Slides is technically a presentation program that allows people to collaborate together seamlessly. However, Slides as a product can be used for so much more including publishing eBooks with limitless possibilities including student portfolios, curriculum, unit maps, stories, tutorials, and more. 

How To:

Creating an eBook from Google Slides is the exact same as designing a presentation in Google Slides including opening slides, choosing a template, and adding all desired content. The key to turning a regular presentation into an eBook is formatting the size, adding logos and a table of contents, and publishing. Formatting the size of a Google Slides presentation can be done by clicking File>Page Setup>Enter Custom Size (8.5×11 recommended)>Apply. It is important to add your unique logo to each page in addition to creating a table of contents on the second slide. Once you have the table of contents written, each title can be hyperlinked to each specific slide by highlighting the text and clicking command/ctrl k and choosing the correct slide. Once all desired content has been placed, the eBook can be published first by downloading the slide deck as a pdf by clicking File>Download As>PDF document. Add the downloaded pdf document to your drive and right click to access the sharing settings. Change the sharing settings of the pdf by clicking on Share>Advanced>Change the privacy setting to On – public on the web or On – anyone with the link>choose can view. Copy the link and share for people to access your published eBook!

Tip: Once the pdf has been created, changes cannot be made. You can share a published version of the slide deck that will automatically update changes by first changing the sharing settings as suggested above. Once sharing settings are public, click File>Publish to the Web>choose to auto-advance slides every one minute>click Publish. Copy the link and share for people to access your published eBook! 

Next Steps:

Interested in learning more? Checkout the websites below for great information. 

References:

All sourced information is hyperlinked as applicable above. 

TLDR (too long didn’t read):

Google Slides is technically a presentation program that allows people to collaborate together seamlessly. However, Slides as a product can be used for so much more including publishing eBooks with limitless possibilities including student portfolios, curriculum, unit maps, stories, tutorials, and more. 

@hollandkaylah