Embed Code Now Available in Google Sites

Google just rolled out the ability to embed code into the new Google Sites. The first thing I thought of was that this will be great to share Stop Animation projects using Google Slides.

See my previous post about creating Stop Animation - Google Slides to Stop Animation.
Take the published embed code and add it to a Google Site.

Find the timing for the slides in the code - delayms=1000 and change it to a faster transition. I usually start by trying at least 200ms. That would be 5 slides per second. (MS is milliseconds. 1000ms equals 1 slide per second. The default is usually 3000ms - 3 seconds per slide.)

Creating Digital Word Sorts

Some tips to creating a word sort using google slides:

Decide on your category headers and lay them out at the top. Set up your background. Once you’ve got it the way you want it, download as an image - I usually use png, but jpg would work too. Then go to ‘change background’ and add that image as a background.

This makes it so a student can’t accidentally change the headers or categories.

Make the word cards by using shapes and typing inside the shape. If you want them to be in a neat stack, select them all (you can select everything by holding the left mouse button and dragging over everything you want selected). Go to Arrange, then arrange vertically, then arrange horizontally. They will be in one neat stack that you can place wherever you want.

You could also make the word cards so those can’t be altered by creating them like you did the background and downloading them as an image, and then uploading them to the slides file. It depends on how important this is to your class and how much time you want to put into it.

Here is an example of a completed word sort that we used last week. The link will prompt you to make a copy.

Word Sort - Adding -ed and -ing

Image of word sort linked above

Google Slides to Stop Animation

• You can use Google Slides to create stop animation. 
• Open a slides file
• Create a beginning slide
• Duplicate and change it slightly to tell your story
• Do this many more times

• When finished, choose File, Publish to the Web
• you will set the file to auto-advance every second
• set to start as soon as the player loads
• choose restart the slideshow if you want it to loop

• Press Publish and copy the code
• Open a new tab and enter the url in the address bar
• You will see in the url a portion that says delayms=1000, this means that that each slide shows for 1000 milliseconds or 1 second. You want it to move faster for the animation. So before you hit enter, change this number to something smaller. Half a second would be 500 milliseconds. We used 200 for most of our stop animation.
• Press enter and check
• Adjust as needed
• You may need to make more copies of images where you want that image to be on the screen a little longer.

Once you get it the way you want it, copy the link again from the Publish to web, add it to a new tab, change the timing to what you feel is right, then copy that address to use where you want it to go.

Once you get it the way you want it, you can take the url and create a QR code. This makes a fun way for families to access the stop animation projects that students create. 

We used the QR codes in ornaments as a holiday gift for families. 

  

  

Interesting to Note: When we were adjusting the timing of the slides, the 3rd grade students seemed to easily make sense of how 1000ms is 1 second, so if they want the slides to go faster then 500ms would be half a second. When I asked how fast 200ms would be they worked it out quickly that it would be 5 slides a second.
Happy Happy Teacher!
Maybe this will lay some foundation into how fractions work.

Math Thinking Made Visible

Using the Chromebooks in our 1:1 classroom, students worked out the problems on their individual whiteboards, then snapshot their thinking into the slides file. The young man above came up with the embedded snapshot idea for us. 
Insert       Image      Take a Snapshot 
We used Google Classroom to distribute the math slides files.

Students and teachers also used the comment feature on google slides to discuss their thinking. We loved projecting the math problems and strategies. Even if students got the answer incorrect, they loved discussing the process and finding where they went wrong. 

This used several of the Math Practice Standards, but especially Standard #3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Jon Corippo and Iron Chef!

I didn't go to CUE and I am sad about that. But, it's awesome that I can follow the amazing presenters and learn from their resources. This past weekend, I watched Jon Corippo's presentation on Advanced Search Tricks.  So many great ideas but one stood out and I gave it a try today.
Iron Chef. Jon describes it as students creating instead of listening, and lots of reps and teachable moments. Details from Jon here.
So I decided to try this with my second grade class as we are learning about geometry and plane figures. I created a template google slides file with the parts I wanted them to include.

Kids broke up into 5 groups of 5. One of the team members made a copy of the file and shared with the other team members and me. Each team member was responsible for one slide. They had 20 minutes to add the info to their slide. At the end of 20 minutes, we took our recess. Then each group shared and each member had 30 seconds to share the info on their slide.

The excitement and focus was over the top. Every student was working. As they shared, the whole class got to review the characteristics and attributes of each plane figure 5 times. They caught any discrepancies in facts immediately and helped each other.

Jon suggested having three student judges for the presentations. I also had every student comment on a Google form about something the group did well. All of the students were focused as they wanted me to pick them next to be a judge.

Thank you @jcorippo for sharing such great ideas!
For more info, go to https://sites.google.com/site/mistercorippo/
https://youtu.be/ryDiViQBLOQ

Nearpod Live or as Homework

I haven't blogged about this yet, but I love Nearpod! I think of it as kind of an 'in yo face' slide show but it's more than that. First, for a live presentation all screens show the same material and progress at the same pace. You control what students see and interact with and it's all on their own laptops or tablets. More than that, there are so many interactive elements. Students can answer polls, draw or write what they are thinking, do a quick quiz to check comprehension, check out embedded sound or web links and more!

Nearpod Info

My class loves when I pull their work to the main classroom screen and they get to discuss and check how that person did. No names are shown on the screen but about 99% of the time, my kids will say "That's mine!" The quick quizzes give each student immediate feedback on their own screen so they can see how they are doing.

It's very simple to create a Nearpod. You can use an already created file in the Nearpod library. You can create one from scratch, you can upload a powerpoint or pdf to use. There is even a Google extension called Nearpodize This that let's you take a Google Slides file directly to Nearpod. Once you load the slide show up you'll want to add interactive activities. That's where it gets fun for the kids. Can we say active participation?!

With a subscription, you can use Nearpods as homework activities. This is using the Nearpod file self paced, but all answers and interactive parts are saved in reports. The homework Nearpod could also be used as a center activity, or review. I have used it with audio files to have the kids do a self paced spelling quiz.

Give Nearpod a try!

Slides in Second Grade

Google Drive in Second Grade
Today was our first day to try Google Slides in class. We have been working on landforms and the kids have worked on Google Drawing and Docs for a few weeks. This was done by a team of 3 second graders today. It's not complete but I'm so excited about what they will be able to do this year! :)

Here's to the risk takers! This next presentation was made by another student who figured out (and taught the class) how to crop images into shapes! Hello! I did not know how to do this! I didn't know I wanted to do this. But now I really want to!