Developing Relationships with Google Slides

My New Reality:

In January, I was handed the eighth grade English class due to new scheduling. I had to fight myself to not just jump right into teaching class and immersing students in texts. The kids had been together all year, and since it’s a tiny school, they’ve been together for many years before this. I was the outsider, the new piece of the puzzle, so I knew I had to plan something that could start bringing us together. Sherry and I immediately began brainstorming activities to do in order to get to know these students and begin building relationships.

 

Our Process:

Truth: we came up with TOO MANY activities. For the past five years, our lives have been about brainstorming ideas, working with teachers all over the world, and writing curriculum. So what we found difficult was choosing the ONE activity that we were actually going to complete with students. We narrowed down our options by constantly returning to THE WHY.

Why was I doing this activity?

By answering this question, it became clear what activity would be best. I wanted to get to know all my students better in order to begin building strong relationships and to help them find books they will enjoy.

The Chosen Activity:

We chose to create a shared Google Slide presentation that would allow students to introduce themselves. There were lots of pros to this activity:

From a technology perspective:

1. Students already had Google accounts and were used to using Chromebooks. I like to avoid extra logins whenever possible.
2. Google Slides is a versatile tool that, once learned, could be used in any other subject area, so time spent learning/exploring it was an investment for later on when I ask them to create something else.
3. It’s a really open-ended tool, which allows students to express themselves and be as creative as they want to be.

From a teaching perspective:

1. I have a document with each student’s picture, name, and likes from day 1. (If only had been this smart years ago when trying to match hundreds of faces with names!)
2. I can ask open-ended questions that, when paired with the open-ended nature of the tool, can give me great insight into the student’s personality.

There are lots of ways to do this – a quick Google search will yield plenty of templates (why start from scratch, if you don’t have to, right?). But I wasn’t pleased with what I found. Usually I do an example to show students what I expect, but also to make sure the project will do what I want it to do. As I tried using the templates, I found I was struggling to complete the assignment. I was sort of bored, and a little stressed. This was NOT how I want to start my semester with these students.

The Plan:

I decided not to give students a template! I know – complete madness! But the more I searched through templates, the more I realized that for the purpose of my assignment (remember my WHY) I wanted to take advantage of the open-endedness to get to know my students.

I started a new Google Slides presentation, added a new blank slide for each student and wrote their name in the notes section. (You could also assign each student a number and have them “claim” that number slide in the presentation.) I also set the sharing settings to “Anyone with the Link.”

Even though I chose not to use a template, students do still need some direction, so I brainstormed what I wanted them to include on the slide based on what I wanted to know about them. Here are the directions I gave them:

1. Write your name
2. Add a selfie
3. Share three things you did over the break
4. Share one thing you’re proud of or something you do well
5. Share something you want to do in the future

That was it! I created my own as an example and then posted the link to the presentation in our Google Classroom.

How It Went:

Shockingly well! At first, I had two students just staring at the screen. When I asked what was wrong, they told me they were “just waiting for it to load.” As I stared at their screens along with them, I realized that they weren’t used to a blank slide! I told them that it was blank on purpose and I wanted them to be creative! I explained that their slide should NOT look like mine – but as long as it had the five elements I asked for, it could be whatever they wanted it to be. That revelation created a buzz of excitement that quickly spread around the classroom. The kids were so excited to have free reign to be able to create a slide about themselves and they took off!

When we started planning this assignment, I thought the lack of a template would be my biggest hurdle. However, the piece the students struggled with the most was having to take a selfie. This was so strange to me in a culture where mirrors have been removed from girls’ bathrooms in some cases because of excessive selfie-taking and posting!

One student actually said, “I really like this, because I can show my creativity”.  💚

The Finished Product:

The finished product was shared as a class and will be shared with the parents as well (bonus points for using Google Slides!). I have realized that I use this presentation every day as a reference. We have already begun developing strong relationships and I have used the information to create conversations.

Check out our finished product (two pictures missing and I don’t believe in correcting kids’ work).