Hamilton Tech Talk
February 2016
Comic Strips With Google Slides
Are you looking for a fun activity to do in your classroom? Maybe your class made comic strips in the past, but you want to try something new. Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft Office’s Powerpoint, and is primarily used for creating presentations. You can access it on any device with an internet connection, and by signing into Google with your Hamilton user account.
Using Google Slides your students can create fun and simple comic strips that can be shared with everyone. Making a comic strip on Slides can require communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. All kids know what a comic strip is, and creating them on Google Slides can be a fun activity to convey classroom concepts, tell a story, depict a historic event, or illustrate vocab words.
Students can add different backgrounds, characters or images, and create speech and thought bubbles with the ease of a few clicks. Google Slides uses the internet to search through millions of images to create unique comic strips. For that extra something special, animations can be added to bring comic strips to life.
Below is an hour long instructional video on building a comic strip with Google Slides. You can also submit a Request Form, and have a facilitator assist you in learning and implementing this fun activity. Check out our short Comic Strip.
Plickers
Free Online Virtual Field Trips
Through the magic of technology, teachers have the option to have their students embark on an online virtual field trip, which saves the cost and hassle of physically going to another location or gain access to a location that isn't possible to visit. One option is Google Connected Classrooms, which works through using Google Hangouts & Google +. Connected classrooms delivers a virtual tour of a facility, a conversation with an expert, or a show-and-tell session with museum artifacts right to your classroom and partners with tour guides at National Geographic, The Seattle Aquarium, and the American Museum of Natural History to name a few.
Google + is a social network that works with your Google email account, and is similiar to Facebook. You add "friends" or "members to your circles to connect with. Once you activate your Google + account you would join the Connected Classroom Community to connect with partners that will announce upcoming field trips. Hangouts are a real-time, on-air video conference with up to 10 participants. At the start time of the event, you can tune-in to live Hangouts on the field trip’s Google + event page and project it on your Smart Board.
A Request for Google Drive Outside Sharing Form would need to be completed to access a Hangout outside the Hamilton Township domain.
There are several more opportunities for virtual tours for museums, space, archeological sites, and more, which can be found below.
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Instructional Technology Facilitators
Website: http://www.hamilton.k12.nj.us/
Email: techfacilitator@hamilton.k12.nj.us
Chris Corney-McGee / Joyce Fiedler / Joe Valver