New Video Options in Google Slides

Starting today you'll see new, exciting video options for Google Drive.

You can now insert videos from Google Drive directly onto Google slides! Insert > Video > Choose Your Video Source (Previously you were limited to only using YouTube videos.) Just imagine the possibilities with student-created videos using WeVideo!

Regardless of the source of your video, you also now have more video options! Select the video on your slide and you'll see Video Options on your toolbar.

Select Video Options on your toolbar and a menu will appear on the right.  Got a long video but only want to show 30 seconds of it? Now you can with ease! Video Options allows you to set the start and end time of your video. You can even set the video to autoplay when in present mode as well as mute audio. How will begin using these new video options in Google Slides?

3 Easy Steps to Adding Animated Gifs to your Next Presentation

Image Source

In a recent training, I embedded an animated gif on a Google Slide to add a little humor and the question came up how to add those to my slides? It can be done in 3 easy steps!

1. Find your desired animated gif. There are numerous sites to search for animated gifs. I tend to use giphy.com a lot or Google Search. Giphy allows you to search multiple categories and even provides the opportunity to create your own. (That's another post!) If you search using Google, refine your results to just images and further refine them by choosing selecting animated under type.

2. Save your animated gif. 

• Now that you've found your desired animated gif, regardless of method, you need to save the image. 
• Do this by right clicking on the image and selecting "Save Image As..."
• You will have a chance to name your image and take note as to where your image is being saved. You'll need this information for the next step!

3. Insert your animated gif into Slides. 

• Open up your Google Slides where you want to place the animated gif.
• Choose Insert > Image
• Select Choose an image to upload > Locate file you downloaded above > Select

• Move your animated gif to desired location on the slide. 
• If needed, resize your image using the corners to avoid distortion. 

That's it! Now your presentation has a little animation!

New Templates in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides! Oh, My!!

This is an exciting week of new features available in Google. If you visit your home page of Docs, Sheets, or Slides you will notice new templates readily accessible at the top of the page. You can get to the each apps homepage by clicking on the waffle and then clicking on your desired apps icon (Docs, Sheets, or Slides).

Try out some of these preexisting templates to make your workflow more efficient and productive. Students can use them as a starting point as they create different projects.  Within Docs, you can find report, letter, and resume templates and much more! Within Sheets, there are planners, calendars, and scheduling templates. In Slides, you can find templates for student certificates, book reports, and much, much more!

New Themes in Google Slides

NEW to Google Slides this week are brand new themes!  When you create a new Google Slide file you will notice new theme choices on the right side of your screen.  These choices have been updated and modernized to give you and your students more choices for their presentations.

If you still can't find what you need, there is a choice to import theme at the bottom of the screen.

1. Choose Import Theme

2. Choose a Theme from an existing presentation or Upload a Theme.

3.  Looking for additional themes to upload?  Check out http://www.slidescarnival.com/ for even more FREE Google Slides Templates.

How might you use some of these new themes in Google Slides?