JP Prezzavento gave a presentation teaching educators how to use Google Slides to make learning more entertaining for students called “Not Your Grandma’s PowerPoint.”

One of the many important things the Coordinator of Industrial Technology at Fox C-6 School District said was that the biggest struggle in learning is learning new things, so he said to stop learning new things and start focusing on mastering what you’ve already been taught.

“Teaching and learning with technology always happens in this pool,” Prezzavento said. “You have to be comfortable wading in the shallow end before you pass the safety rope and venture into the deep end.”

When making a PowerPoint on Google Slides, teachers need to be sure to engage their audience which is students, and need to insert texts and images. He then suggests to let Google design the slides and to use the explore button online for help.

Prezzavento said when trying to engage the audience, put in questions and answers that can be used to get a reply from students to help them get more involved in the conversation. Teachers may also want to use a class blog on the presentation, to assign the students random slides and make them reply to it, or maybe have them compliment what they like most about the slide or suggest something they don’t like about the slide that maybe they can fix.

SlideCarnival is a website that can help teachers design their slides as long as credit is given. Student-created content is also something the class can work on to demonstrate that they understand the content. Students can custom-make digital textbooks using Google Slides that they can study from or that students in future classes can learn from.

Another thing educators can do when working with Google Slides is create comic strips, depending on what the students are learning. They can make their own comic strip so they can have a little fun with learning and possibly be able to remember and understand the content better.

“Creation is better than consumption,” Prezzavento said. “Create something new and interesting rather than doing the same thing over and over again. Make learning exciting and help the students look forward to learning new things every day.”