Using Google Slides Q&A Interactive Feature

By Kim Miklusak

I had a presentation in my grad school class last night, and while preparing for it, I actually Googled "How to make Google Slides more interesting"...and that's how I got here.  Did you know that you can turn on an interactive Q&A option when you're presenting in Google Slides?

Here's are quick steps:
Step 1: The option to turn it on is found in 2 places: either under "present" or when you're already presenting, in the toolbar screen on the bottom.

Step 1, Option 1

Step 1, Option 2

Step 2

Step 2: a small box will pop up on your screen.  From there you will see "audience tool" and "speaker notes" in addition to the running timer, a pause option, and a of your slides.  From this screen you will press "start new" OR, and this is really cool, if you've presented before, it will show you the option to click on the notes from other recent times you've given this presentation.  This is a nice feature because it will allow you to address any questions ahead of time if you feel you need to.

Step 3

Step 3: You will now have the option to select the audience.  Mine defaulted to our district; however, you can turn on so that anyone with the URL can respond.  This is a nice feature because you can choose to toggle this off or own depending on your presentation and what you need.  Once you press this button, the screen will remain like this unless you have audience members writing questions or making comments.  If this happens, a notification will pop up on "audience tools."  Otherwise, you can remain on "speaker notes," if you have them, to continue your presentation.

Step 4

Step 4: One of the nice features about this is that the audience is able to see each other's comments (anonymously or by name).  Therefore, people have the ability to "like" a comment, allowing the presenter to see a popular question.  Additionally, the presenter can click on the "present" button under a comment.  This results in the comment overriding the presentation slide and showing up as its own slide.  This way the presenter can show the comment/question to the whole audience and address it.

HOW this went in my class: My screen in class wasn't letting me show only the "presenter view," so my whole class was able to see my notes.  This wasn't a problem in the setting I was in, but it would have been a problem if I were given a formal presentation.  I would expand the usage with this from just Q&A and also allow for comments.  I can see many uses for this--especially in classes that are lecture-heavy.

Leave us a comment below if you have other suggestions, uses, or experiences in your class!

Pounce on Periscope: a Science of Cancer forum

By Rita Sayre

You poured yourself into creating an experiential lesson or forum, yet you had some students who missed it.  How can you re-create the experience for absent students?

Kim Miklusak, one of our DTCs, and I recently tried Periscope, an application that works with Twitter to create a live video feed of your lesson or presentation.  Anyone with the twitter link can join in and see your live video.  Even better, Periscope allows others to comment in real time on what is happening.  Students who are absent can participate in class in real time.

In D214, we love to create forums – common experiences for our students on a theme.  Presented in the theater, these experiences become an enrichment opportunity or a time to explore a topic in depth.  When students miss this, they often are unable to complete following activities or use the skills or knowledge as the course moves forward.  Periscope not only allows a student to participate in real time, but you can save the link for 24 hours and students can watch the lesson the following day.

Flipping your classroom might seem like a tall order in an otherwise busy school year, but Periscope is an effortless way to bring the world into your classroom or theater.

Here’s what you need to be a Periscope powerhouse:

• Have a Twitter account that you use for school purposes
• Download Periscope and link it to your Twitter
• Let your students and colleagues know – send out the link
• Video your presentation in Periscope
• Send out a reminder that the link is live for 24 hours

Kim's note: We will follow up with a blog post soon that explains the technical "How To" of using Periscope as well as some of our experiences from Periscoping Rita's event.  Stay tuned!

Teaming on Tuesdays #2: Student Presentations Made Easy!

By The Collab Lab Team

Today was our second Teaming on Tuesday of the Second Semester.  Our Teaming on Tuesdays offer staff an opportunity to participate in a short professional learning experiences, as short as ten minutes, that usually involves a brief visit to a classroom to see a strategy in action, followed by collaboration time in the Collab Lab to brainstorm applications in our own classroom and/or "play" with the apps.

The American Literature team invited us to observe their students doing presentations with Adobe Voice. Students projected their creation through Apple TV, but also gave an introduction in person and shared their presentation with their teacher digitally--mainly through a Media Album on Schoology. Much like ShowMe, Adobe Voice allows students to include images and text, then record their voice in the same slide. One advantage of Adobe Voice is that if a student makes a mistake, he or she can re-record one slide without having to record the entire presentation again.

When we returned to the Collab Lab, we brainstormed possible applications of Adobe Voice. In addition to presentations, one idea that emerged was to have students summarize the day's lesson in Adobe Voice as an exit slip. They could add one slide a day so that they have a review activity by the end of the week. We also discussed how students could create their own review videos to share with class--a type of podcasting, for example.  Other teachers liked the idea of having students take their own photographs around where they live and to create their own "About Me" presentations for their foreign language classes.  If you have more ideas and/or examples, please share them with us as the year goes on.

Here are some more examples of some of the American Literature students' projects!
1.  Mahatma Gandhi
2.  Dennis Rodman
3.  Lorde

Using Audio Recording to Improve Fluency

By Bonnie Kale

In a high school English classroom, we rarely have the opportunity to practice and assess our students' reading fluency.  After all, with the time constraints of a 50-minute classroom, it would be nearly impossible to give 25 students a chance to read aloud from a text.  What's more, we don't want to force kids to read a passage aloud in front of their peers when they have had limited time to practice. Now, thanks to the audio feature on Schoology, it is easy to seamlessly incorporate fluency instruction and assessment into our courses.  Simply create an assignment as you regularly would in Schoology.  When students go to submit the assignment, they will click on "submit audio recording." 
 
Recently, I had the opportunity to use this audio feature with my honors freshman class. Students practiced reading the prologue from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in small groups, paying particular attention to the punctuation, phrasing, rhyme, and overall purpose of the passage.  Then, students went home and submitted an audio recording of themselves reading the prologue aloud.  I was able to provide students with individual feedback about how to improve their fluency, thus, enhancing their overall understanding of the passage.  For example, I could hear that several students were pausing and ending phrases at the end of the line, rather than continuing the phrase to the end of the punctuation.   It's easy to forget that fluent reading is not a product of good reading but a contributor to reading comprehension.

Vox Vote for Large Audience Voting

By Bruce Janu

The CinéStudent Film Festival is coming this Saturday with 11 student films from Elk Grove, Prospect and Hersey. As part of the program, each film will be eligible for an “Audience Award.” The audience will get to vote on the film they think is best.

The problem is: how do we conduct that vote?

Of course, the standard is paper and pencil. But this involves manually counting the ballots. We want immediate feedback. I have used several survey apps and websites over the years, such as Survey Monkey, Ballot Bin and Easy Polls.  Most recently, I have used Socrative during large presentations. However, I wanted to try something different—something more like an actual voting app.  One thing was for sure: the digital option was essential and, since most people have phones at least, a film festival can simply be another BYOD event.


That’s when I discovered VoxVote.

VoxVote is a newer company, offering a mobile voting platform in which real-time results can be displayed via a projector or computer. It works on all platforms, from Apple to Android, and was designed specifically for large presentations.

It is free for teachers, too.  And now it is set up so that anyone with a “d214.org” email can make a free, unlimited account.

Here’s how it works:

After creating an account, click on the “create a new event” button. Then, write questions that your audience can answer using their devices with appropriate responses.

My event is set now with one question: “Which film of the 2015 CinéStudent Film Festival gets your vote for the "Audience Award?"

When I am ready for the audience to begin voting, they need to take out their device and go to live.voxvote.com (or use the free app). They will be prompted for a pin number.

After entering the pin number that you give them, this is what they will see:

On my end, I see a graph and a running total of the votes. This graph can be displayed on the projector, giving a real-time vote count. However, you are manually required to hit the refresh button in order to update the results. This is built into the system on purpose, so that early votes do not cause undue influence on the voting during your event.

Once the voting starts, you can refresh the screen periodically to show a running total of the votes. 

VoxVote seems to be very flexible. I can add questions on the fly if needed. I can change the types of questions asked.  How secure is it as a voting platform? I am not sure. According to the website, VoxVote prevents users from voting more than once. But, like anything, I am sure there are work-arounds. However, I have control over how long the voting continues and can cut it off after a certain amount of time. 

Mobile voting is one way to make presentations more engaging by forcing audience participation. As someone who does a lot of forums throughout the year, a quick way to display questions with immediate feedback can add much to a presentation.

I have used Socrative for “quizzes” during forums. But VoxVote may offer something a little more unique for larger gatherings of people.

And, hopefully, this will be the ideal tool for our film festival.

We’ll see on Saturday. Next week I’ll let you know how it all worked and if Vox Vote is worth the time.