How to Use Digital Resources on Your One-to-One Devices

The first step is to make or purchase the Google Slides™ resource that matches your standard. To make it simple, I’ll make a graphic organizer that you can try out. The first step you’ll want to decide with your resource is which parts you want the student to be able to work with and which parts you don’t want to be manipulated. The part you don’t want to be manipulated needs to be in the background as an image. In the image to the right, I included a title, directions, and the web as the background which the student would not be able to move or change.

The next step is to add the places where you want your students to respond. This is where your text boxes are used. With each text box, I’d suggest adding a text prompt (what you want the student to write). I used red text to make it stand out, and the beauty of digital is that you can use all the color you like since you can grade and return digitally and never print them. If for some reason, your student deletes or shifts the text box, it is easy for them to fix. They can simply insert another.

Now that your page is set up, there are just a few more steps just to make it easy for your kids to understand. Google Slides™ was created to help teachers and other users share their presentations. The comments section is for the presenter to put notes he/she doesn’t want the audience to see during the presentation, right. Well because students are working with the resource in the DESIGN MODE, we can use comments to clarify expectations. If you’re required to share I Can statements, you might add the objective in this space too.

When our division began using Google Apps, I was thrilled. Google Classroom helped my students so much. I loved that I could lay out the plan for the day, include links to the things I’d planned, collect and grade assignments easily, and even clarify things for my students all in one place. I love that we have all of these options now.

Teaching today is SO DIFFERENT from how it was when I began, and one of the biggest changes is in the time needed for pulling it all together. If you want to go digital, this may be one place where you may find purchasing resources helpful. If your school hasn’t checked into site licenses through TPT, you might have them do so. Schools are now able to purchase resources for teachers much more easily, and the great thing about this option…..you get lifetime updates FOR FREE!