Class Exercise Using Google Presenations

For this class exercise we created a new blank Google Docs-Presentation and set the sharing as "anybody with link can edit." Then we emailed all 11 students in the class the link.

During class we sat around a big table with our laptops and logged on to the same Google Presentation (they did not need Google accounts since they could access it to edit through the link and it was housed in the class Google account that we had created).

We gave each pair of students a topic, listed on a Google Doc (below), along with a couple of website links with good background information on their topic to get them started with their research. They were given a half an hour to create 2-3 slides (by each pair) in the presentation.

We could all watch as the slides were  simultaneously created in the Google Presentation. When we hovered our cursors over a slide we could see the names of the students who were working on it. In effect we had created a giant slideshow-wiki.

When the students finished we set up a computer with a projector and started the slideshow, having each student talk (from their seats) when their slide popped up. Since all the topics fed into the larger subject we were studying (the history of Native American treaty rights for fishing in Wisconsin) we wound up with a great 30 minute seminar (with 11 different speakers).

The students enjoyed the process; everyone was an expert on one piece, they could see how all the pieces fit together, and the collaborative-tech aspect of it was really engaging.

Here is the presentation they created, unedited-- this took half an hour in class, and with the actual presentation the entire lesson could be completed with 11 students in a class period that was 70-80 minutes long (typical of Tuesday-Thursday class periods, or evening classes).