Updated/Upgraded Google Presentations Editor! Finally.

Thank goodness!

The new version of Google presentations

Whether you’re trying to wow your boss with an end-of-quarter presentation or impress your classmates with an animated book report the new version of Google presentations can help.
Check out some of the new features in the latest version of Google presentations:

• Character-by-character collaboration: See updates in realtime as you edit presentations with other people.
• Drawing on canvas: Draw organizational charts, flowcharts, design diagrams and much more right within Google presentations.
• Transitions: Enhance your presentation with new ways to transition between slides.
• Shape linking: Turn shapes within your presentation into hyperlinks to other slides, presentations, or external webpages.
• Better animations: We’ve added new themes to make it easy to create show-stopping presentations.

Transition to the new version of Google presentations

We hope that switching to the new version of Google presentations will be a seamless transition. Here's how to enable the new version of Google presentations:

1. Click the gear icon in your Documents List and select Documents settings.
2. On your settings page, check the box next to "Create new presentations using the latest version of the presentation editor."
3. Click Save.

Once you enable the new Google presentations, all of your new presentations will be created in this editor. Any presentation you upload and convert to Google Docs format will be converted to the latest version of Google presentations.
The new version of Google presentations takes advantage of the most up-to-date technology, such as HTML5. For this reason, new Google presentations are only supported in modern browsers. For the best experience, we recommend using Google Chrome, which supports all of the new features in Google presentations.

Which version am I using?

An easy way to tell if you're using the new version is to if there there is a red plus sign underneath the File menu. If there's not, you're using the old version of Google presentations.

How do I upgrade my older presentations to the new version?

At this time, it's only possible to create new presentations in the new version of Google presentations. Older presentations will remain in the old format for the time being, and we'll eventually upgrade them to the new format to give you all of the benefits of using the new version.
You can copy old presentations into the new version by using the import slides feature or by copying and pasting slides using the web clipboard.

Updated/Upgraded Google Presentations Editor! Finally.

Paperless Science Fairs: Other Options besides Google Docs

Kelly Bell is a science teacher with a Paperless Mission!   I sooooooooooo appreciate her.  I also did a quasi-paperless science fair this year with Google Docs (all of our 8th graders are 13 or older), but we have 450 students in the 8th grade and in order to have the projects presented all together at the same time, we had a traditional tri-fold-display fair night.  We simply do not yet have the technology to support a paperless "Exposition" event.

Some of her ideas are similar to mine, like setting up your website to serve as a sort of "database" for due dates and downloadable items (worksheets, templates, rubrics, etc.)...Here's an idea to add to that:  how about a timeline/checklist that combines all that? See here: My Project Checklist page

However, Ms. Bell has gone many, many steps further and put together her tech "tutorial" lessons into a Google Presentation that her kids can view online.  It's called "Need Help?".  It is intended to be a resource for STUDENTS as a set of reminders on how to do some of the important technology-based steps of the project.  It includes instructions on how to use an online graphing tool (we use Google Spreadsheets--if they know how to use Excel, they're good to go!) from the NCES site, and a terrific Works Consulted tool called BibMe.

I love BibMe

"BibMe is a free automatic bibliography generator that supports MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian formatting. BibMe leverages databases provided by Amazon, FindArticles, Yahoo! News, and CiteULike to quickly and accurately AutoFill citation information for you. BibMe will then format the citation information according to the rules and guidelines of the style guides. If you prefer, you can enter your citation information manually. BibMe also contains a quick citation guide to show students the correct syntax for citing in various formats."


Here are links to my other posts on Science Projects:

I'm in SCIENCE PROJECT Looooooove!

Mar 25, 2010

I have several posts to offer on this topic, and will be deluging you with ideas and tips, but here's my very first one: Science Buddies. WOW! There are approximately 10 to the 5 billionth science project sites out there,

 

Rocket Aerodynamics

Mar 25, 2010

Rocket Aerodynamics is a sample project from Science Buddies. If you look in the right hand side of the page, it gives you time estimates and cost estimates. It also coaches on number of trials, averaging, controlling variables and a ...

The Science and Technology Lady: Google Docs Science Fair: Chapter ...

Apr 12, 2010

I did promise to give you lots of ideas for science fair projects. My use of Google Docs for my students projects (along with ScienceBuddies) has REVOLUTIONIZED my grading* (posting on that at a later date) and made it much easier for ...

Paperless Science Fairs: Other Options besides Google Docs

Using SMART Notebook without a SMART board--and posting your slides to Google Sites!

I had a technology breakthrough today. Just a creative spark that is saving me and my students lots of headaches. Here's the story:

****I do NOT have a SMART board in my room, but my district owns many SMART boards, so we have a site license for the software. I am a SMART board trainer, so I use the software all the time with my tablet.

1. Next week is the Midterm Performance Assessment for 8th Grade in my school, so today was the day where we reviewed the principles of experimental design in class.

2. My students offered their input on what makes a "fair test" and I served as a scribe. I wrote all of these notes in Notebook 10 on my tablet PC.

3. Many students were absent today, so I posted the notes to my class blog:
http://sites.google.com/site/mrskaplanssciencepages/home/dashboard

4. Then, I emailed the notes as a PDF to all of the special education teachers that work with my students.

Here is how I did it:
1. Make slides in Notebook.
2. Save the file.
3. Click File>>Export>>Powerpoint
4. Save the powerpoint file to your computer.
5. Upload the powerpoint file to your Google Docs account.
6. Open the Presentation in Google Docs.
7. Click Share (upper right)>>Publish/embed
8. Go to your Google Sites Dashboard page
9. Open the page editor (sign in to Google Sites first)
10. Click Edit>>Insert>>Presentation
11. Select the presentation that you just uploaded to Google Docs.
12. Click "Save"

Voila! Anyone can now view the slideshow of the notes from your class!

DIRECTIONS on how to email pdf's of your slides to a colleague without opening any other program:

1. Keep the Notebook file open and save it.

2. Click File>>Send to>>Mail Recipient (as PDF)

3. Give it a few seconds to convert the Notebook file to an Adobe PDF.

4. An email message, with the PDF as an attachment should open up.

5. Enter any addresses you wish to send it to.

6. Click SEND.

Tada! No copies, no papers...

Using SMART Notebook without a SMART board--and posting your slides to Google Sites!