How to Use Google Slides Effectively for Remote Learning
Remote teaching can be tough for both educators and students. Luckily, there are many ways to make this easier for both parties. One of the methods is by using Google Slides. Let's explore how to use Google Slides for remote learning.
If you've been a teacher even for a short period of time, chances are you've used some kind of presentation software as a teaching tool. Maybe it was PowerPoint, or maybe it was Google Slides. Either way, you're likely familiar with the process of setting up and presenting with one of these presentation builders and how they can help teachers give their lessons more effectively.
As soon as the pandemic struck, however, you might have increased your use of these online tools to conduct distance learning. You likely used tools such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, or even Zoom to give your classes. But did you know you can also use Google Slides to teach remotely?
In this article, you'll learn how Google Slides can be a powerful tool in remote learning, why you should incorporate it into your arsenal of teaching tools, and how you can effectively use Google slides to teach remotely. Google Slides has a lot to offer, and both you and your students will benefit greatly from its great variety of remote learning options and features. So if you're thinking of using Google Slides to teach, here's where to start. Why use Google Slides?
This is a powerful presentation builder that lets you format text, add images, and use a variety of Google Slides templates like these to create a well-designed presentation. It allows you to sync your presentation across all of your devices, giving you access to your work from almost anywhere. There are also a variety of add-ons you can integrate into Google Slides for added features, giving you the ability to make your Google Slides presentation more powerful in terms of design, interactivity, and effectiveness.
Save valuable time and effort Communicate directly with your students
One of the best things about Google Slides is that it allows you to share your work, collaborate, and communicate with anyone you choose. If you create a presentation on Google Slides and add your students to it, they will be able to comment on different sections of the presentation. This gives them the opportunity to clear any doubts or concerns they might have. Even better, Google Slides also allows multiple people to work on a presentation at a time, so you will be able to answer your students' comments the instant they arrive. Save valuable time and effort
Building a solid presentation can be easy if you're familiar enough with the presentation builder you're using. However, creating a presentation that is effective and engaging takes time. Fortunately, Google Slides takes a lot of the hassle of building a presentation away. Busy teachers who may not have the time to create a presentation from scratch will benefit from the variety of layouts and themes that Google Slides offers. With a variety to choose from, you can pick out the best theme for your presentation and save valuable time and effort that would otherwise be lost to designing the presentation yourself. Customize your presentations
If you happen to have more time on your hands or are interested in designing your presentation yourself, Google Slides has you covered. You can modify virtually anything about your presentation to your liking. Google Slides lets you add, edit, and format elements of your presentation from any device. This allows you to design your presentation to your student's needs, ensuring an engaging learning experience for all. This also allows you to modify your content to meet each of your students' learning styles by working around the text, visual media, and audio. Access your presentation across all devices
Just because you're teaching remotely does not mean that you always have access to a computer. If you don't always have access to a laptop or desktop computer, you can still use Google Slides effectively. With the power to sync across nearly all devices, Google Slides allows you to work on your presentation from your smartphone, tablet, or computer. This removes the need to use a computer constantly, as you can just as easily check or modify your presentation right from your smartphone or tablet. Save your work instantly
Technical issues happen. They are a normal part of life, and as the role of technology increases, so do the chances of it malfunctioning. You might consider yourself of the lucky few who have not experienced the overwhelming feeling of losing valuable hours of hard work and effort put into a digital document to a technological malfunction. It might have been as simple as forgetting to save your work before you close the program. Whatever the case, it's always best to work on the safe side and avoid technological difficulties wherever possible. Google Slides helps avoid lost work by automatically saving your work the moment you make a change. Keep and share all documents in a single place
Not only can you have your work saved instantly with Google Slides but you can also keep all of your classwork in a single place through Google Drive. By keeping all your work and students' work in Google Drive, you are helping to give your students a single source of information that contains everything they need to learn their lessons. To do this, you simply create a folder within your Google Drive and give it a name that states exactly who and what it's for. Then you save all your Google Slides presentations (as well as any other content you might use) and give your students access to the folder.
This and every other one of its awesome features makes Google Slides a perfect presentation builder and tool for teachers who are doing remote learning. It has an easy-to-understand user interface that allows any teacher to quickly become familiar with the way this presentation builder works. Ultimately, Google Slides is a great solution for distance learning, as well as for teachers who need a reliable presentation builder that is easy to use and share. Using Google Slides effectively
You might already be familiar with Google Slides and most of its great features. However, it's important you also know how to use Google Slides in an effective way that helps you create and teach more effectively. It's not enough to use the basic features Google Slides offers. As a teacher working remotely, it's necessary for you to use your online tools to their full potential. This allows you the opportunity to optimize your lessons in a way that can almost beat in-person teaching entirely. Here are the different ways you can optimize your use of Google Slides and create presentations that capture students' attention and allows them to learn effectively. Capture and engage students' attention
One of the great features that Google Slides offers is the ability to choose and modify templates from a variety of options. Google Slides allows you to pick templates for any purpose, which includes an Education category with presentation templates that help you teach your lessons more effectively. This is good, especially because the learning process of your students depends greatly on your ability to capture your attention with engaging content and lessons. Having the option to start your presentation from a well-designed template helps you accomplish just that. It also allows you to build on the template and modify its design to fit your students' needs. Adapt to your students' learning styles
After a while of using Google Slides, you'll start to learn how to use and implement all the features that it offers. This knowledge of Google Slides will be incredibly useful in helping you create presentations that meet your students' different learning styles. This is one of the keys to using Google Slides effectively in remote learning. The more you adapt your presentation to your student's needs, the better you will be at teaching your lesson, and the easier it will become for your students to learn. Always adapt your presentations to meet the different learning styles of your students. Create a variety of assignments and activities
Another way to use Google Slides effectively is to get creative with its features and use them to create a variety of learning assignments and activities. This isn't difficult to do, as all you need is the time and creativity to replicate the effectiveness of in-person assignments to the digital space. Here are a few of the types of assignments and activities you can create with Google Slides. Check out the list and use any of these assignment types in your own teaching process.
These are only a handful of the assignment types you can integrate into your Google Slides teaching experience. An online search will provide you with more awesome ideas that will help you optimize your use of Google Slides in your remote teaching process. Take advantage of interactive features
Google Slides allows users to comment on the presentations, as well as respond to other users' comments. This gives you a teaching opportunity that you need to take advantage of. With the chance to interact with all of your students within a single presentation, you should always use this feature to help you teach your lessons more effectively. Make use of this feature and allow your students to comment on your presentations. Once they do respond to their comments, questions, and concerns to help them grasp your lesson a little better. This is a great yet simple way to get the most out of Google Slides. Take advantage of collaboration features
Similar to the interactivity features, Google Slides allows multiple users to modify a presentation at the same time. This also gives you a window of opportunity to optimize your use of Google Slides. Using any of the previously suggested assignment types, create a presentation that allows your students to collaborate with one another in your learning assignments. Collaboration not only helps you teach more effectively but also removes some of the lack of connection that learning remotely creates. This is a win-win situation for any student or teacher who currently finds themselves teaching or learning remotely. Integrate audio and visual media
One of the most important features that Google Slides offers is the ability to integrate audio and visual media. This is incredibly important, especially for visual learners who might not quite grasp the subject you're teaching by reading text. This is why you need to take advantage of this feature and integrate audio and visual media into your presentations. One of the best ways to do this is to attach a video to your presentation, combining the text, images, and sound to help your students learn more effectively. It might be tricky to learn how to effectively use this feature, but the effort is well worth it. Use elements to explain complicated topics
Another of Google Slides' great features is all the different elements you can add to your presentation. Google Slides allows you to add elements such as shapes, tables, and charts. You can also add more specific elements such as diagrams. This gives you the opportunity to explain complicated topics within your presentation. It doesn't matter what class you teach or which stage you're in your lesson plan. You can always use these elements to organize information in a way that is easy for your students to understand.Conclusion
Teaching remotely can present a variety of challenges for teachers. Especially with how the current pandemic brings its own set of challenges. Given the circumstances, it's important for teachers to take advantage of all the remote learning tools available to them. Regardless of the challenges they face, it's up to teachers to help their students get the valuable information they need to prepare themselves for life after school. This is where Google Slides comes in. With a variety of features, you can create a well-designed presentation that captures the attention of students and allows them to engage more effectively with your lessons. This helps students get a better grasp of each topic, as well as communicate effectively with their teacher and peers.
This is a very exhaustive article about the use of Google slides for online presentations for the benefit of students made by the respective teachers wherever they are present in the world. It makes sense to create presentations online and share them with the students. So the hassle of making a separate presentation and uploading it on the internet and making available to the students is not there. Moreover, another advantage is that the format matching and other version issues of the programs used for creating presentations is sometimes an issue and in that aspect, the use of online facilities is a welcome move. It is very easy to share the things on the internet when they are created there itself and that saves time also to quite some extent.