Add Audio to Google Slides

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For years, educators have been begging Google to allow them to add voice overs, sounds and other audio files to a Google Slides presentation. After all, PowerPoint has had this feature forever. There have been workarounds, like adding a YouTube video and making it super tiny somewhere on the slide. But these were just hacks, […]

A (Dot) New Way to Google

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There are several ways to create a new Google file. You can do it using the plus sign in Google Drive… or start a new document from a current one using the File menu… or go to docs.google.com/create. Now there is a super easy way to start a new Google file… and it’s (dot) new! […]

Summer PD Roundup

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Summer is almost here! It’s a great time to relax, recharge and yes, even level up your technology proficiency. While Tech Tips Tuesday is going on our annual break, we wanted to leave you with some summer professional development opportunities. Remember, all Northern Buckeye/NWOCA trainings are included with membership at no additional cost. You also have access …

Updates to Google Slides

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In case you missed it, Google added a bunch of welcome features to Google Slides. Here are some of the best features.

 

Integration with Google Keep

You can now bring your Google Keep notes into Slides just as you can with Docs. This is great for bringing in text or images that you use frequently. If you haven’t had a chance to try this out, here’s an article from G Suite Support that explains more.

Integration with Google Keep

Linked Slides

Now, you can link and sync slides from multiple presentations with a click. When you copy and paste from one Slides presentation to another, you now get the option to Link slides or not. Linking slides ensures that when one of the presentations is updated, any linked slides are as well. Do not link pastes a new copy of the slides, with no relationship to the others.

Linking slides

Grid View

Grid view allows you to view all your slides at once as thumbnails. This helps you easily reorder or change formats of multiple slides. To access grid view, click the button on the bottom right of the slide sorter.

Skip Slides

You can now choose to skip select slides without fully deleting them when you present from your phone or laptop. To skip slides, right-click on the slide you want to skip and choose Skip slide. Now, any slide you skip will still show up in your editing view but will be skipped when presenting. This is great for customizing Slides presentations for different audiences.

Skip slides

Hopefully, these new additions to Slides will help make your presentations even more efficient and effective!

Comments… comments everywhere!

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One of the things we might lose when moving to digital tools is communicating with our students. Just like we can leave notes on physical assignments, we can also do this with our digital assignments in Google Classroom.

There are three basic kinds of comments you can leave students in Classroom.

Class Comments: These are comments that you add to your class stream on the “outside” of an assignment or announcement. This type of comment is visible to the entire class, and can be used to answer questions that anyone might have.

Example of Class Comment

 

Private comments: You can add these comments by viewing assignment results and clicking on an individual student. On the right, below the student submission there is a  comment bar. Leave comments here that only the student can see. This is useful if it has sensitive grade or feedback information. You can also add a private comment to a number of students at once when returning an assignment. Check out our previous tech tip on managing private comments.

Example of a Private Comment

 

Example of a comment in a doc

Comments in a Doc/Slide/Sheet/Drawing: These comments are left on the student’s file that he/she submitted to you. Highlight something you’d like to comment on, then click the black speech bubble icon. This adds a comment on specific items in student work.

 

Knowing how each of these comments works and when to use each kind will make giving student feedback more efficient and effective.

Voice Typing in Slides

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Google just added the ability to use voice typing in Slides.  There is one caveat though… it only works in the Speakers notes section. Here’s how it works.

From the Tools menu, choose Voice type speaker notes.
You may get a message asking for permission to access your microphone.  Allow this.
Once you do, just click the microphone icon and begin speaking.

While you are talking, the icon looks like this:

 

And this is the end result:

 

Again, this only works in the speakers notes.  But, you could copy and paste that text into the slide itself for an easy workaround.
BONUS TIP!

 

Google Classroom just added a “Copy code” option!  Now you can quickly copy your enrollment code to give to students.

 

Insert Videos in Slides without YouTube!

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For years, teachers have requested to ability to use videos in Google Slides, without the need to host them on YouTube. Yesterday, Google finally made this possible!


Just add your video to Google Drive. Then Insert Video within your Slides presentation. You’ll see a new option for Google Drive.

Once you’ve added a Drive video to your presentation, you can choose when to start and end it, whether it should autoplay when presenting, and whether it should be muted or play with audio. Simply right-click on the video and select Video options.


If a person viewing your presentation doesn’t have permission to view a video embedded within it, they’ll be prompted to request access.

Note that while you can play Drive videos in Slides on the web and mobile, you can only insert them from the web application. For more details, visit the Help Center.

This feature should be rolling out to users within the next two weeks.