No More PowerPoints...
Make Your Presentations Interactive!
Please Share Your Ideas!
Smore
Tutorials:
Smore User Guide
Smore Help Center
Directions for a Class Using Smore to Create Reports
Student Directions for Creating a Smore Space Project
Examples:
Jackson Vandagriff of Anna, Texas has created this Smore for his middle school ELA class.
Who Should Be on the Next US Postage Stamp?
Cooking Up Groovy Graphics in the iClassroom
CTE Programs - Dover High School
Digital Research Kit for 6th Grade ELA
Biology Ecology Project Directions
The Interaction Between and Among European and Native Cultures
ThingLink
Examples:
Where the Red Fern Grows
Algebra Problem
Sloth - kindergarten
One Crazy Summer
Wonder
High School Class Examples and directions
Let It Roll (uses the App to record your voice)
500+ ThinkLink Educational Examples
Bloom's Digital Taxonomy & Web 2.0 Tools
Class Reflection
Virtual Manipulatives for the iPad
My Texas
Keyboarding Activities
Favorite Chrome Extensions
Microsoft Sway
Microsoft Sway is one of the many tools available in Office 365. It is an easy way to tell your story with interactive content. Make your presentations more engaging or allow students to show what they know.
How this teacher uses Sway for Science experiments.
Examples:
Adobe Spark
The Ultimate Easy Holiday Lesson Bundle includes Holiday lesson ideas, examples, and templates.
Examples:
The Colorado River
How to Draw by a 5th Grader
Story Elements with the Empty Pot
Adobe Spark Video - allows you to create a video slideshow—complete with sound and narration.
Examples:
Invitation to High School Open House
Joe Dockery's Tips
- Find a quiet place for your students to record their audio (spread out!)
- Have them write out a script
- Keep the scripts short and to the point (proof it and give feedback)
- Ask them to brainstorm icons and photos to go along with each topic
- Break long sentences or ideas into chunks with an image for each idea
- Listen to each recording and re-record if necessary
- If students are doing it individually, use headsets
Adobe Spark Post
Examples:
Tutorials/Ideas
Teacher Testimonial - Adobe Slate: Empower Students
A Guide for Schools and Educators
WriteReader
The free version of WriteRReader allows you to have:
• 60 books
• Audio recording
• Book link sharing
• Image selection and safe search (1.8 M images)
• Template books and library
• Feedback and notifications
The Quick Start Guide under the Support menu will help you create your account and get your students creating books! Six Ways That Teachers are Using WriteReader blog post can be found at tinyurl.com/writereader.
Examples:
Google Drawings
Google Drawings has so many classroom applications and this is one idea that can be used in any subject area and grade level.
The following directions are for creating a picture of yourself with 3 different callouts containing a fact about yourself.
- Open Drive.
- Select New, More and choose Google Drawings.
- Change the title from untitled drawing to your first and last name.
- Go to Insert → Image and find the picture you want to use.
- Select Insert → Shape → Callouts.
- Choose one of the callouts.
- Drag the callout to desired location and type in your first fact.
- Drag the yellow dot (located at the tip of the point) to move the point of the callout.
- While the callout is selected, click on the Fill tool and change the color.
- Create 2 more callouts for the other facts.
- You can change the alignment, font, font size and color, etc. of the text, if desired.
- Click Insert →Text Box to add your name to your picture. Drag your text box to the desired location. Change the font and the font size and color so that it is clearly visible.
- Go to File and select Download As → JPEG.
Example:
Ideas:
Describe yourself at the beginning of the year.
What was Washington thinking when he crossed the Delaware?
How would you describe a parallelogram?
What are five important facts about an animal cell?
Screencastify
- Directions for finding and adding Chrome Extensions can be found here.
- This one-hour video course by Matt Miller (Ditch That Textbook), will show you ins and outs of Screencastify and some of Matt’s favorite ways to screencast in the classroom.
- 3 Screencastify Features You Probably Didn't Know About by Jake Miller
- Using Screencastify to Improve Student Annotations by Kristi Moore
- How to Use Screencastify to Grade Student Papers by Casey Clark
Loom is a similar Chrome Extension. Educators can apply for a free Loom account by clicking here and completing the application process.
Fodey - The Newspaper Clipping Generator
Check out the other fun activities that Fodey.com has to offer!
Sutori
Examples:
Sutori stories - examples of stories by subject area and age level
Back to School Interest Inventory
Romeo and Juliet Sequence of Events
Other Websites for Presentations
Other Apps for Presentations
Shadow PuppetEDU (free with in-app purchases)Croak.It! (free)
AudioBoom (free)
Popplet Lite (free)
Popplet ($4.99)
Little Bird Tales ($2.99)
Educreations (free)
ShowMe (free)
Canva Graphic Design
Canva offers educators and students a free pro account. Click here to access the application and details.
Resources:
A Simple Video Guide to Canva
Create Amazing Images with Ease
22 INSANELY USEFUL Canva Tips and Tricks (2021 Update)
Finding Images
Pixabay - Thousands of high-quality photos, illustrations, and vector graphics are included on this website.
Find free and fair use photos by ISTE
Free Images for Your Projects by Tony Vincent
Photos for Class - This site from Storyboard includes age-appropriate images and automatically includes a citation for each image.
Pics-4-Learning - The images on this site are copyright-free for teachers and students to use in an educational setting.
Open Clipart - This site includes free vector clip art.
Unsplash - Every 10 days, 10 new high-resolution photos are added to the site. You are free to use the photos for any purpose.
The Noun Project - This website aggregates and catalogs symbols that have been created and uploaded by graphic designers.
Top 5 Sites to Find Images for Student Use by Kathleen McGeady