Slide This into the Classroom...Google Slides That Is! (Technology)

Slide This into the Classroom...Google Slides That Is!
The end of the year is fast approaching!  If you haven’t dived into the technology pool, now is the time!  One way to do it... Google Slides! I know this may seem so basic, and I know many of you are very familiar with it and use it, so why not let your students be as familiar with it as well as you are.   Give your students the opportunity to engage and create their own Slides presentation! Make it a research project, a year in reflection piece, or an all in one classroom piece that you can show at Open House.  The possibilities are endless!
Now that we are at the end of the school year do you need fun and engaging ideas to keep the education going?   Well, Google Slides is just one of many ways to do it.  Google Slides offers many ways in which you can edit or create presentations.  You can give your students free reign and allow them to create their own from scratch or you can allow them to choose from preexisting templates that Google has already created for us.  .  Click here to see how to access those.  Or you can assign Slides of your specific liking for each student to have for themselves (assign it in Google Classroom).
Ways to use Slides in the classroom... For the past two years, I have required my students to create a “digital memory book” about their 3rd-grade year in review.  Here they discuss favorite memories, subjects, greatest accomplishments, and subjects they have learned, just to name a few. These presentations are then put on display and running during Open House. Parents love to see this and always want to have a copy of memories.   For the less advanced kiddos you can create a template for them to just type right into with their answers, and for the more advanced have students create it all on their own. Want to bump it up, even more, have students collaborate on one of the slides and type in questions or comments they have for that student to respond to. Another great way to use Slides is by requiring an end-of-the-year research presentation on anything that excites them.  It could be something they are interested in or want to know more about. This gives them the freedom to choose, take ownership, and really dive deeper into their learning.   Depending on your grade and students you can make using Slides as basic (substitution/augmentation) or high (modification/Redefinition- SAMR model) as you want to go.  Use it for any subject or any topic you find beneficial. Here I have linked a couple of examples of how I have used it with my 3rd-grade students. Writing example one, writing example two, research example one, research example two. Slides are something that our students should eventually know well.  It guides them on the road to career and college readiness as current students across the globe in high school and beyond are using this tool.  So let’s start now!                        Tech-ing with a purpose,   Tiffani Bossieux