Two Easy Ways to Gather Feedback During Slide Presentations

Earlier this week I received an email from someone who was looking for way that students could respond to prompts during a slide presentation without the teacher having to keep a separate window open all the time. Two options immediately came to mind. My first suggestion was to try ParticiPoll. My second suggestion was to try using the commenting feature in Google Slides.

ParticiPoll is a service that you can use to add interactive polls to your PowerPoint presentations. Your polls are created and delivered within your PowerPoint slides. Once you've added ParticiPoll to your PowerPoint you can create as many polls as you like. Each poll can have up to six response options. The best aspect of ParticiPoll is that you don't have to leave your slidedeck at all in order to administer the poll and see the results of your poll. Your audience can respond to your ParticiPoll poll through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. To respond they simply go to the URL for your poll and choose a response. When you want to display the poll results you just click to the next element in your PowerPoint slidedeck and the results are displayed for all to see. All polls are anonymous.



ParticiPoll.com - Free Audience Polling for PowerPoint from ParticiPoll on Vimeo.

If you're a Google Slides user, you could share your slides with your students before you begin your presentation (Google Classroom makes it easier than ever to do this). As you're presenting ask students to submit their questions for you as comments on the slides. It's not the ideal solution, but I've done it and it works.

Add YouTube Videos to PowerPoint and Word Files

Through a recent episode of Tekzilla Daily I learned that Office 2013 has a couple of handy options for devoted Office users. In Office 2013 Word and PowerPoint will have easy-to-use video insertion options. Check it out in the video below.


Applications for Education
If you want your students to move away from simple text and images in their slides and start using video these new options in Office 2013 could be handy. Of course, Google Docs has this option too. If you want to insert YouTube videos into your Google Presentations select "video" from the insert menu in Google Presentation then either search for a video or paste in the URL of a video.

Add Some Oomph to PowerPoint Slides

oomfo (yes, they spell it in all lowercase letters) is a free add-on to Microsoft PowerPoint. The purpose of oomfo is to enable users to insert animated charts and graphs into their PowerPoint slides. Using oomfo users can import data from spreadsheets to create their charts and graphs. Users can also export the charts they've created for reuse in other presentations. Watch the video below to see oomfo in action.



Applications for Education
Dressing-up PowerPoint slides doesn't inherently make presentations better. That said, visuals are an important part of making effective presentations that your audience understands. oomfo could help you or your students create visuals that assist in comprehending data and other information.

Author Stream - Do More With PowerPoint

Author Stream is a service that converts your PowerPoint slide shows to flash media files. Author Stream can be used to host and share your slide shows publicly or privately directly on the Author Stream website. In addition to sharing on the Author Stream website the slide shows you upload can also be shared via Youtube, iTunes, or embedded into a blog or website.

A free companion tool to Author Stream is Author Point Lite. Author Point Lite is a desktop application that converts Power Point files to flash files. Files converted with Author Point Lite retain all of the transitions, timings, and narration created in your original file. Author Point Lite is a free download.

Applications for Education
Author Stream provides teachers with a free method for sharing notes and presentations with students without sending large email files. The Author Point Lite desktop client is a free download that teachers and students can use to enhance their presentations beyond the typical Power Point presentation.

School Clip Art - Hundreds of Free Files for Students

School Clip Art is, as the name implies, a resource for locating free school-safe clip art. School Clip Art's galleries contain hundreds of files that teachers and students can use in slideshows, videos, and other digital presentations. You'll find galleries for sports, seasons of the year, holidays, and other special occasions.

Applications for Education
If the standard clip art that comes with PowerPoint or Keynote doesn't have what you're students need, have them browse through the galleries of School Clip Art.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
NASA eClips
Open Clip Art Library

Free Lesson Plans for Mouse Mischief

Yesterday I wrote a post about Microsoft's new free add-on for PowerPoint called Mouse Mischief. At the time that I wrote that post about Mouse Mischief I was working from a press release. Today, I learned that Microsoft has developed twenty-five templates for lesson plans incorporating Mouse Mischief. The templates can be used to teach math, science, language arts, and social studies lessons. You can find the templates here and here.

Microsoft Mouse Mischief - Free PowerPoint Add-on

Microsoft Mouse Mischief is a new free add-on to Microsoft PowerPoint. Mouse Mischief is designed as an inexpensive alternative to clicker-type response systems. Mouse Mischief allows teachers to put multiple choice questions into their PowerPoint slides. Students can then answer the questions using mice connected to their teacher's computer. Mouse Mischief works with both wired and wireless mice. You can learn more and download Mouse Mischief here.

Applications for Education
I have not had a chance to try Mouse Mischief with students yet, but it seems like it could be a good way to get feedback from students during a lesson. If you're school already has Microsoft PowerPoint for teachers, this is a nice free addition for you.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Jeopardy PowerPoint Game Template
Parade of Games in PowerPoint
Jeopardy Labs: Make Your Own Online Jeopardy Game

Crocodoc - Share and Mark-up Documents

Crocodoc is a simple service that allows users to quickly share and edit PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoint files. Using Crocodoc does not require you to register for an account. To use Crocodoc just upload your file, select your marking tool, and get to work. Crocodoc provides a unique url for every file you upload. Share that url with the people you want to have comment on your document or PowerPoint slides. Crocodoc doesn't have nearly the number of editing options that you would find in Google Docs or Zoho Writer, but Crocodoc does have the advantage in simplicity as it doesn't require users to have accounts in order to collaborate.

TechCrunch and Larry Ferlazzo both had good things to say about Crocodoc last week.

Applications for Education
Crocodoc is a very simple service that could be quite useful for students to peer edit each other's documents and slides. The sticky note option in Crocodoc could be useful for writing suggestions in the margins of a document while still giving the document's creator the final creative control.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Scriblink - Your Online Collaborative Whiteboard
Scribblar - Simple, Effective, Creative Collaboration
Postica - Collaborative Sticky Notes

Parade of Games in Powerpoint

Parade of Games in Powerpoint was developed by faculty at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Parade of Games in Powerpoint provides teachers with games and game templates for classroom use. The games and game templates are available for download in Powerpoint format. Some of the games and game templates that teachers can find on Parade of Games in Powerpoint include Bingo, Jeopardy, and scavenger hunts.

Applications for Education
If you're looking to create a review-style game to use as a group activity, the templates on Parade of Games in Powerpoint may be a good resource for you.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Pete's Powerpoint Station
Powerpoint Palooza

FREE National Geographic map with purchases $65+!

World of Teaching - Slide Shows for All Subjects

World of Teaching is a website of free power point slide shows for wide variety of subject areas and grade levels. The World of Teaching homepage features the most recent additions. All of the slide shows are organized by subject area. Each slide show is available as a free download. I would like to see World of Teaching add a preview option so that you didn't have to download each file in order to view the content.

Applications for Education
World of Teaching could be a great website to have up your sleeve when you don't have time to build a slideshow. World of Teaching's slideshows could also be good resources to look through for ideas for creating your own slideshows.

Two similar websites that I've previously written about are Pete's Power Point Station and Power Point Palooza.

Making Slide Shows Better

If your students are tired of using the same boring, standardized fonts when they create content or you're tired of looking at those fonts, take a trip to 1001 Free Fonts. The fonts available are free for non-commercial use and can are available for Mac and Windows operating systems.

Applications for Education
While not a ground breaking website by any means 1001 Free Fonts might be useful for students looking to create something a little different than everyone else. Sometimes just a minor deviation from standardized fonts is all a presentation needs in order to stand out from the crowd. The same is true for posters and pamphlets. But don't take my word for it, see what marketing guru Seth Godin has to say about font selection in his blog post Nine Steps to Powerpoint Magic.

No Time to Build a Slide Show? Check This Out

My department chair, one of the most technophobic people I know, actually referred me to a great web resource. Power Point Palooza is a collection of more than 200 Power Point presentations for use in history courses. The presentations are nicely categorized as US History, European History, or Global Studies.

Applications for Education
One of the best things about the Internet is all of the resources that help teachers save time. If you need a presentation for your history class on short notice, Power Point Palooza may have what you need. If you use one of the presentations from Power Point Palooza on your class blog or wiki be sure to give proper attribution.

Pete's Power Point Station - A Great Stop for Elementary Teachers

I came across Pete's Power Point Station yesterday while I was searching for lesson ideas to use with a group of struggling readers in one of my US History courses. Pete's Power Point Station has hundreds of Power Point presentations that can be downloaded by teachers to use in the classroom. The bulk of the presentations are best suited for use in elementary school and middle school settings. There are presentations for almost every subject area and school theme. The topics range from geography to dealing with school bullying.

Applications for Education
If you need a presentation for your elementary or middle school class in a hurry, chances are Pete's Power Point Station has something for you. If you can't find exactly what you're looking for, consider downloading the closest presentation and modifying it for your needs.