Make a Manipulative with Google Slides

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE

Make a manipulative or interactive with Google Slides

MODULE DIRECTIONS

Watch the tutorials in the "Videos" section to learn the various skills needed to create activities for students with Google Slides.
Read the resources in the "Articles" section to get some inspiration for how you can use Google Slides in the classroom.
Follow the directions in the "Make and Take" section to complete this module.

VIDEOS

Note: The toolbar has been redesigned in Slides, but the icon locations and menu items are the same.

Overview of Google Slides

Get a quick tour of Slides. Slides can be used for more than just presenting. During this module you will learn to create dynamic learning activities for students.

Slides Mania - Free Google Slides templates

Slides Carnival - Free Google Slides themes.

Lock Slide Content in Place

When creating activites for students with Slides, an important skill to know is how to lock that canvas in place to prevent students from accidentally deleting or moving needed items. This is accomplished by dowloading a slide as an image, clearing the slide, then uploading the image as a background.

Creating Moveable Digital Activities

Learn the fundamentals of creating moveable activities in Google Slides and get some ideas for the types of activities that you can create for students to interact with. In this video I'll highlight how to create drag and drop, annotation, primary source analysis, caption this, and graphing activities as well as other tips such as how to incorporate video, duplicate objects, and create an "infinite cloner" effect.

Maximize Space in Google Slides for Activities

If you or your students are working on a smaller screen, it is helpful to know the ways in which you can maximize the space in Google Slides to create more room for your activity. This tutorial will show you 4 ways to increase space within Google Slides. As a bonus, you'll learn a tip to show students on how to move items on your slides without the use of a mouse or touchscreen.

ARTICLES

Read or browse through these resources to help you generate some ideas for using Slides with your students.

Interactive Google Slides Activity Ideas for Classroom Excitement
Google Slides Interactive Notebooks - This post delves into how to use Google Slides as an interactive notebook. Students can build their own or work from a template provided by their teachers. Interactive notebooks can be a nice alternative to lab reports and a nice formative assessment tool. This post includes a template with all 20 of the activities explained in the post.
The Ultimate Google Slides Teacher Resource - A great collection on Google Slides from Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook including interactive activities, tutorials, and templates.

MAKE AND TAKE

Now it’s time to apply what you learned to create an activity to use with students.

Click the button below to access the module performance task. Click the USE TEMPLATE button in the top right. This will create a copy of the assignment in your Google Drive.

Performance Task