For my primary students, rather than let them search the Internet themselves, I like to provide resource links for them when they research online. Tomorrow, grade 1 will be coming to the computer lab to research whales. In the past, I’ve created a simple page with hyperlinks leading them to online resources and videos that their teacher and I have already viewed and approved. This time I thought I would try something a little different and more visually interesting using Google Slides.
After a little playing around, here is what I came up with. (Click the image below)
The trick here is to make the page appear full screen so the students see just the slide. To do this, I created a new slide presentation with one slide. Added images and hyperlinks to my resources, then clicked PRESENT to get a URL for just that one slide.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jICnIebPJ2S5qiNEzy0w4ti7Gjtmez-_bbruvqu74A0/edit#slide=id.p
Next I made one minor tweak to the URL, changing edit# to present? So the new URL looks like this.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jICnIebPJ2S5qiNEzy0w4ti7Gjtmez-_bbruvqu74A0/present?slide=id.p
The result is a hyperlink that automatically opens as a full screen slide with active links. Sure this is a little more work, but don’t you think it is more interesting than just a list of hyperlinks?
Thanks to Lisa Highfill and her amazing “HyperDocs” presentation for inspiring this idea.
Thank you for sharing your innovate “Whale” Google Slide! I was so impressed with your website and project example, I’ve already shared it with my school’s technology teacher and 1st grade team (they start their whale unit next month). Your creative underwater layout and several reliable hyperlinks are an excellent way to engage students and integrate technology into lessons, all the while still keeping it simple. As a teacher it is easy to get overwhelmed trying to keep all of these aspects in mind. Often times I end up creating technology pieces that require numerous parts, steps, and take hours to create. By developing just one slide with multiple hyperlinks, I feel this is a much more realistic goal for me and my classroom. I also appreciate you brining the National Geographic and PBS Learning websites to my attention. I’m an elementary math teacher, but somehow these trustworthy sources were not on my radar. I’m looking forward to using Google Slides to make my own “one pager” story problem and fun math review slides to inspire learning and creativity in my own students. Your whale example has truly opened a door to endless possibilities. Thanks again!
What a great idea! Your Google Slide sample provides me with opportunities that I can incorporate into my classroom and with my kids at home. It’s so convenient for teachers who don’t like too many steps in creating things on the computer.
I had my daughter click on the links of the Google Slide and she just loved it. We both especially liked the video segment from Between the Lions which was a non-fiction piece about what you would do “if you were a blue whale” Oh I’m taking into consideration the endless possibilities this has to offer.
I thank you for sharing this and I ‘m looking forward in creating “one page” story slides to help inspire learning and creativity in my classroom.
Thanks again
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What an amazing idea. This gives me a whole new way to incorporate technology into a lesson. I can create a slide on the cell for my science class where they can click on every organelle that links to videos or definitions. Or I can create a slide for my 6th grade social studies class that talks about ancient man that they can do a scavenger hunt assignment on and view sites with information that I have verified. This will also allow my special ed and EL students equal access to the information and the opportunity to explore the lesson at their own place.
Your slide/site is very informative as a whole and a lot of fun to explore. I can’t wait to try making a slide resource page. Thank you!
I absolutely love this idea of creating a Google slide to help direct your students on the right path for researching information. The middle school I teach at implemented a 1:1 Chromebook program starting last year, and one of my struggles has been teaching the students how to find websites that are accurate and valid. I think at the beginning of the year, it would be great to share with students websites that are verified by me and throughout the year, teach them how to tell if a website is credible, so they can eventually create one of these hyperlink Google slide pages of their own.
I can create a Google slide for my next unit on ratios that has pictures and hyperlinks. This will be more engaging and interactive rather than just posting the website URLs on Google classroom. Having pictures and words helps the visual learners make connections between the topic we are learning and websites they are being directed to. This will also allow students to work at different paces because there are many websites for them to choose from, and they can spend as much time as they need looking through them.
Thank you for offering clear directions on how to make the page appear full screen so the students see just the slide. I agree this will take a little more work, but it will definitely be worth it when the students are more engaged in the lesson. This was very helpful and I look forward to implementing this in my own classroom!
If you love Google Slides, you might also want to check out this resource. Your students can create stop-motion animation using Google Slides… https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BggTrajBKyG8RiL6qgmSwb4xf7VceRsXdhnQ-OrWsF0/pub
Thank you, this is a great idea. My students spend most of their time on the web trying to find reliable sources, and as a result, they spend minimal time working on their actual projects. Unfortunately, the computer lab is not always available and sometimes some my students do not have ample time to complete their projects. Providing the links for my students ahead of time and assuring that they are reliable will definitely reduce some the constraint on time.
This is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom and to teach students about reliable sources. Furthermore, it could be used across curriculum such as a study guide for math, science, and so may other innovative creations.
Thank you, I will definitely use it in my classroom.
This is a great resource for research projects. Thank you for a wonderful idea. I like that you can create just one slide with hyperlinks that lead to trusted websites that will provide accurate information. I like that it would reduce the amount of time that my students spend researching, and would help to avoid misinformation.
Your directions are clear and easy to follow. I am planning on sharing this idea with my coworkers, and suggesting that we consider using this for future research based projects. I also plan to show the stop-motion animation to my coworkers as well.