With the surge in covid cases around the country, many schools are making the temporary shift back to remote learning. This means teachers are scrambling to convert their lessons into virtual activities for remote learning. I feel pretty lucky as my district has not (YET) made the switch but I have some tips for how you can create your own virtual activities for remote learning. Below I will be sharing some tips for how to make activities interactive in Google Slides that you can use in your remote classroom.
Why I use Google Slides instead of Google Docs
My school is a Google school. This means that we create all of our documents in the cloud-based Google Drive. We use this in place of the Microsoft Office Suite. Because my school requires the use of Google Drive, I have resorted to making all my lessons and activities in Google rather than using Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. Google’s equivalent to Microsoft Word is Google Docs and the equivalent to Microsoft Powerpoint is Google Slides. So if you are a Microsoft user, there is no need to switch to Google as everything I will be mentioning below is applicable to Powerpoint.
With that being said, many colleagues have asked me why I use Google Slides to create my activities rather than Google Docs.
The answer is simple. Google Slides gives you much more control and power when creating interactive, digital content. If I wanted to just have text on a document with nothing else, then yes Google Docs would be fine. But when it comes to making virtual, interactive content that students are using for activities remotely, you will definitely want to use Slides over Docs.
When I make virtual activities, I often use lots of graphics, tables, and text boxes. When you add these into Google Docs, it can be hard to properly format them exactly where they need to be in the document. Google Slides allows you to place these graphics without many limitations or formatting issues. The switch from Docs to Slides has allowed me to quickly and efficiently create my digital lesson plans.
One of the biggest tips I have for using Slides for activities, is to adjust the slide size to fit a regular sheet of computer paper, 8.5″ x 11″. This will allow you to print off each slide as a single page without formatting issues. So if you want to assign it digitally, you can but if you want to still print it for any students, it is just as easy.
To adjust the slide size to an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, open your Google Slide document. Click FILE > PAGE SETUP > CUSTOM and enter the size in inches.
How to use Google Slides to make virtual worksheets for remote learning
One of my favorite uses of Google Slides is to make any worksheet digital. This is a super easy way to make any worksheet usable for a remote lesson. When I create content in a Google Slide that I am going to print, I simply just space the questions out far enough apart so that students have room to write their responses. But when you are making a virtual worksheet, you need to provide editable text boxes that so that students can type their responses. I also don’t want my students to be able to edit the questions or accidentally delete any important information, like the directions, from the document.
In order to provide editable response boxes and to ensure students do not accidentally remove information from the document, I use a trick called “Edit Theme”, formally called “Edit Master”. In Google Slides, you can make and save your own themes that can be used across different documents. Basically you are making a template to be used over and over again. We can edit the theme of any slideshow document so that the “theme” of it is our questions. This means students cannot edit or delete the information we put on the page (unless they know we have changed the theme).
Now you are probably thinking, can’t I just create an image of the worksheet and upload that as a background image and add text boxes over it for student responses.
Well the answer is yes you can but I strongly advise against doing this. When I started making digital worksheets, this is exactly how I would make them. I would make the worksheet, save the page as an image. Create a new document. Upload the image as a background and then add editable answer boxes. The problem was, I would find a mistake or want to change something in the questions. This meant that I had to go back to the other document, fix it, re-download the image, re-upload the background. It became such a process that ate up so much time that I needed to find a better way.
For step by step instructions for how YOU can make a digital worksheet in Google Slides, check out this Youtube Video below. I show you how to use the “Edit Theme” trick so that your questions on the page cannot be edited or deleted but also how to add in editable response boxes that the student can edit with their answers. **Note in the video I use the term “Edit Master” instead of “Edit theme” because Google updated after this video was created**
Once I have finished creating my digital worksheet, I just upload it to Google Classroom. I make an assignment in Google Classroom and attach my digital worksheet to it. I make sure to select “Make a copy for each student” so that every student in the class has their own copy to work in.
How to make a virtual drag and drop activity in Google Slides
So let’s say you have a really awesome activity that you normally have students complete in person that involves cutting and pasting. But now you are remote teaching and have no way to complete this really awesome cut and paste activity. What if I told you, you can still do that activity digitally?? Would you believe me??
Yes, you can convert any cut and paste activity into a virtual activity for remote learning using Google Slides. I have converted some of my favorite cut and paste lessons into digital drag and drop activities. And honestly, I LOVE drag and drops. It is much more efficient for class time because you do not waste time for students coloring and cutting. Lessons that used to take a minimum of two class periods now can be done in about half a class period!
Many of the tricks for creating the drag and drop are the same as I mentioned above. Hopefully you watched the first video to get a sense of the “Edit theme” trick. I truly love this trick because it allows you to put items in the document that students cannot edit or delete by accident. This is really crucial when it comes to creating drag and drops because you want students to be able to move the draggable pieces around, but do not want them to move the background around.
For step by step instructions for how to make YOUR OWN drag and drop activity, check out the Youtube video below.
In my high school biology classes, I teach students about the structure and function of DNA. Every year, we make large models of the DNA molecule with a cut and paste activity. Students cut and paste out the parts of a DNA nucleotide, they glue them together, and as a class we assemble one large DNA strand. When we went remote last year, I was struggling with how I would teach this lesson to them because physically assembling the model is so important to understanding its functionality. I was able to convert this cut and paste lesson into a virtual drag and drop activity that was able to get the same point across to my students. Check out one of my favorite remote drag and drop lessons here.
How to make virtual labeled diagrams using Google Slides
The final type of digital activity I use for remote learning in my classroom is to create virtual labeling activities. I LOVE labeling activities in my science classes. In every unit students end up doing some sort of labeling activity, whether its to label the parts of a cell or organs in an organ system.
Normally I would print off the unlabeled diagram and provide students with a word bank. I would make this a simple classwork assignment or give it as homework. When we went remote last year, I still wanted to make sure my students had the opportunity to label diagrams as it helps with visualizing content.
Using the “Edit theme” trick once again (you can clearly see how much I love using this trick!) I was able to create diagrams that my students could edit digitally.
What I love most about the digital labeling activities, is it provides the students with COLORED diagrams. I don’t know about your school, but my school does not have colored printers. So oftentimes, the diagrams I print come out looking horrible. Students cannot clearly see the different parts.
Check out my video below for step by step instructions to create your own digitally labeling activity in Google Slides.
My final piece of advice for remote learning
My last piece of advice when creating these virtual activities for remote learning is to create short directions videos. Of course I always put the most detailed step by step instructions within any worksheet but there are always students (even adults) that do not understand. I have begun to make directions videos for EVERY single assignment. This has saved me SOOOOOO much time.
After creating my lesson or activity, I do a short screencast explaining what students need to do in the activity. It is like I am explaining the directions to my classroom full of students. For ELLs, this can be a huge help because they can watch the video as many times as needed. They can hear the directions again without having to ask in front of their peers.
The added benefit is for students that were absent the day you did the assignment in class. I teach high school and I often have many students absent from one class. With current covid cases surging, I can have up to 50% of a class out at once. So when students are ready to make up missed work, you can first have students watch the directions video. If they are still stuck, they can watch it again or then come and ask you for help.This saves you the initial step of explaining what to do. Most students will watch the video and immediately know what to do.
Creating the screencast of myself explaining the directions usually does not take more than 5 minutes. The benefit to my students and myself is worth those extra minutes!! I then create a sharable link to the screen cast and insert that link somewhere near the written directions.
You got this!
Even if you are not techie, it can be really easy to create virtual, remote lessons in a pinch. Many teachers right now are switching to remote learning again and I want you to know that you can do this! I hope you find my how to videos helpful for creating your own virtual activities for remote learning. My goal is to provide you with the tools you need convert your lesson into virtual ones. If you are a science teacher and would like to save yourself even more time, check out my TPT store for many virtual activities.
Good luck!
