The "Present" in Presentation

Google Slides presentations.  As educators we make presentations every day for our leaners.  How are we sharing our presentations?  If I want our audience to see the presentation and not all the extra tools you have the ability to share the presentation in a presentation mode with just a few clicks of the mouse!

One way to share a presentation is to change the Share settings to Get shareable link.  In this case, you will see all the toolbars.

There are 2 other options when looking at Publish to Web under the File menu.  The first way is by creating a link.  You can publish the content to be viewable by clicking on a link.  You will need to change the sharing settings to match who you want the presentation viewable by and click the blue Publish button. 

Now when someone clicks on the link it will look like this...

There is also the option to create embed code so that the presentation is embedded in another document. 

One of the features I like best about publishing a presentation to the web is that when ever I make changes to my original document, the link is live and the changes show up automatically for the viewers. I don't have to do anything!

When I am done sharing a presentation I can click stop publishing and it is now no longer viewable by others with the link or a document with the embed code. 

So easy!  And it looks great from the viewers point of view!

Changing How We Look at Maps

I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time last week.  Part of the Social Studies department was going over their curriculum for the next week.  It was, once again, time for their learners to create a map of Asia.  Wait, did you say create a map?  I LOVE maps as you can tell from one of my former blog posts.  The educators and I gathered together to look at a few example maps I have and I was able to show them how to make maps meaningful.

Did you know you can change the base map to show different types of map?

Did you know you can use the search feature to find locations on a map and add to your map a marker?

Did you know you can add images and videos of to a marker on a map?

Did you know you can draw lines to follow where a river flows through a region?

Did you know you can draw you own shapes on a map to indicate a particular area?

Did you know you can add layers to a map so you can categorize types of markers so you can pick when and what the map should display?

The educators put a list together of the items learners would need to add to their map.

Typically you can create maps using an iPad, but I figured a way around that by creating a map in my Google Drive account, sharing the link to my map and having the learners make a copy of the map.  It worked great!  I was so excited we could figure out a way for this to be done on iPads!!

After the first set of morning classes the educators said their learners were as excited about maps as I am!  Learners asked if they could work on the assignment at home.  Yes!!

My heart is so happy there are others out there who love maps as much as I do now!  How can you use Google My Map to engage your learners with the content?

Choices

We have so many choices.  Sometimes there are too many and it's difficult to make a choice.  While I was at TCEA I had the opportunity to go to a session to learn more about Adobe Spark.  I am very excited to hear Adobe will be changing their terms of service so that any age learner can use their products, for free!  This got my attention!  I have used Adobe Spark before and thought it was easy to use, easy to navigate, and I liked the final product I created.

That got me thinking, what about Apple Clips?  Clips is a native app for iOS devices.  This is great because that means all of our learners have access to the app.  There is no sign-in and you do not have to be connected to the internet.  I have made a few graphics to help learners create their own Clips.

There are so many possibilities with Clips in the classroom!  Here is a quick video I made with my amazing teammate, Alli Pryor, to encourage our PLN to try using Clips.

I'm so excited to see up and coming projects by educators and learners using Clips!

TCEA Take Aways in a Nutshell!

Back from a great week of learning at TCEA!  There is so much to share from spending a week with so many innovative thinkers!  It can seriously be overwhelming!  So, on the car ride home we took a few minutes to share some of our take aways that were on the top of our brains at the time.  Take a listen: