Matt Miller has taught for more than a decade, integrating technology to engage students and create unique learning experiences. He created the Ditch That Textbook blog, is a Google Certified Innovator and was named one of the top 10 influencers in educational technology and elearning worldwide by Onalytica.
Matt’s book, Ditch That Textbook, was recently published. It’s all about upgrading your classroom with powerful technology and innovative mindsets to meet students in the 21st-century world where they live. Buy a copy of Ditch That Textbook on Amazon, or don’t wait — get a copy from Matt for $20, cheaper than the Amazon price.
Matt travels around Indiana and the United States to present at schools, workshops, conferences or any other professional development event. Ask him about it in person or email him at matt@DitchThatTextbook.com.
1. Shared PowerPoint — Create a presentation with one slide per student and give students permission to edit it. Then assign an activity — some quick Internet research, a writing prompt, an image search to find an example, etc. When they’re done, show the presentation on a projector. It’s student work instantly on display. (Looking for images your students can use legally and ethically (i.e. Creative Commons or public domain)? Click here and scroll to the bottom for a big list of sites!)
2. Quick blog — Blogging is a useful reflective activity that can generate a lot of online conversation among students. A quick, simple version of blogging can be created in a PowerPoint presentation. Create a shared presentation (see above), and have students write a short “blog post” in their slides. They can even add images (see link above). When complete, students can read each other’s writing and write comments on them using the comment button in the toolbar.
3. Photo comic strips — Take photos of students using a webcam and add them to a PowerPoint presentation. Add speech bubbles to the photos. Then save those images and add each one to a different slide in a PowerPoint presentation. Here’s a site with examples and more details.
4. Animation — This is a great hack (i.e. non-traditional use) of PowerPoint that could take some time to complete but yield amazing results. Check out this video, where the creators made an impressive animation with 450 slides in a slide presentation just by clicking through the slides quickly.
5. Create a PDF ebook — PDF files are about as universal as it gets. You can open them on almost any Internet-ready device. They’re read-only, so publishing a PDF is a good way to distribute information to be consumed by reading. PowerPoint is a great, simple PDF ebook creation tool. Create a slide presentation, change it to the dimensions you prefer, add content and finalize by going to File > Print.
I created a PDF ebook to help you create PDF ebooks. (I hope that’s not as ridiculous as it looked as I typed it.) Click here to check it out. Or, take a look at the original Google Slides file where I created it. (Feel free to make a copy by going to File > Make a copy … but please don’t click “Share” and ask for edit access.)
6. Choose Your Own Adventure story/activity — As a child, I loved these books, where your decisions affected the outcome for the character in the story. PowerPoint lets you create similar experiences. They can be stories where the student can choose the path for the character. Students can create them, or teachers can create them for students. They can even be tied to any kind of class content. Tie the choices to answers for a question. (i.e. The character goes left if the student thinks the answer is 4.4 and goes right if the student thinks the answer is 7.2.)
7. Graphic organizers — Drawings gives users a blank canvas where they can add text, shapes, lines, etc. When done, they can save their work as image files or PDF files and can add those images to documents, slides and spreadsheets. It’s a perfect medium for creating graphic organizers. I’ve created 15 of them that can be copied, saved, changed, tweaked or completely redone to fit your needs and your students’ needs.
8. Interactive posters — PowerPoints are great for bringing images, text and shapes together. Those elements combine for a great digital poster. Create a digital, interactive poster on a single-slide PowerPoint presentation. These digital posters are way better than a regular one made of poster board. Various elements in the poster can be clicked, delivering webpages and other online content to viewers.
9. Interactive whiteboard — Create a one-page PowerPoint presentation and share it with students, giving them permission to edit. Display the drawing on a projector screen. Students can add text and shapes, draw arrows to important ideas and connect concepts with lines. Everyone can make changes, and anyone can watch — in class or away.
10. Annotate images — Thousands and thousands of images are available through Bing. Just use the online images button and the search at the top. You can always upload your own images. Once they’re in a drawing, use text boxes, shapes and arrows to write over the top of those images. Use them to tag important features, add commentary, circle or highlight key concepts and more.
11. Slide deck books — This idea is inspired by Matt Macfarlane, a middle school history teacher from California. In true “Ditch That Textbook” fashion, he has turned from traditional textbooks to creating his own. He finds engaging content on the web and collects it in his “slide deck books.” His students access them online and can click links to get more information. He gives students a “everyone with the link can view” link so they’re read only.
12. Self-grading quizzes — Self-grading quizzes give students immediate feedback. They also let students practice as much as they’d like without depending on the teacher. You can create self-paced assessments that provide answer feedback with Google Slides. For each standard four-question multiple choice question, you’ll need five slides:
On the question slide, for each possible answer, create a link to the feedback slide. Then, on each feedback slide, create a link to go on to the next question.
BONUS: USING FREE IMAGES — Worried about students using copyrighted media illegally? Encourage them to search for media under a Creative Commons license, which allows others to utilize it in various prescribed ways. Search images, music, videos and more through this site.
When using Creative Commons content, it’s important to give proper attribution to the author. Photos For Class integrates with Flickr and adds attribution to images automatically. It models what attribution should look like and makes it easy to follow the rules!