Better than paper strips: Use multimedia in class without a projector

Total
1
Shares

Here’s a simple trick you can use in Elders Quorum or Sunday School:

I’m a big geek—let’s just get that out in the open. I’m also a big fan of Google Presentations. In fact, sometimes I think I can’t teach without them. I made an awesome slide show for my lesson on The Holy Grail (Charity). But I needed a way for the class to see it.

I started by writing the short URL on the board:

goo.gl/UpUiD

I asked them to load it up in their smart phones.

At the time, I didn’t have a smartphone myself, but I knew a lot of them did. So I asked, “Who doesn’t have a smart phone and also isn’t sitting next to someone who has one?” Only one elder raised his hand. That’s pretty good for a class of about 45. Anyways, you’ll have to judge whether technology is ubiquitous enough in your classroom for this to work. If it doesn’t work now, it should be a solid strategy in a few more years. By the way, most chapels have wifi now—so people can do this with iPods and WiFi tablets too.

They were then able to pull this presentation up on their screens:

We talked about it together, even though we were looking at 20 different screens. And I could easily say, “Who will read Slide 13 for us?”

 

You can create online presentations with your Gmail account at Drive.Google.com. After you’ve created it, click File>>Publish to make it available to everyone.

It will list a public URL:

Copy that link. Then paste it into goo.gl. It will give you a shortened URL. Write that on the chalk board. And remember, these short URLs are case sensitive : )

 

If you test this out, I want to hear how it goes. It was an experiment for me, but it went well. Does it work for you?


10 comments
  1. Thanks for the instruction. I would love to use this method, but the members of my ward, in general are only slowly adopting new technology. We’ve got some tech savvy folks but only a handful of ward members have smartphones. So I think it will be a few years before this becomes a functional teaching technique in my neck of the woods.

  2. Interesting idea. Not sure my ward is ready for it yet but could us it to present the class in the normal way and make it available for class members afterwards so they can use interesting quotes images etc…in their FHE or own study

  3. MMR,

    Dude, that’s great! Glad to know you’re hacking your Mormon life.

    I got my transparent background images from an Indiana Jones icon set I found online.

    Thanks for sharing! (Sometimes feedback is a rare thing.)

  4. For sure! As a fellow blogger, I know how tough it is to put something out there and have no one respond. I have a review that has over a thousand views in a single month, and only one comment.

  5. Question on this. In your slides it says to publish, but is the proper route to share via the shareable link? When publishing, I see that it wants to auto advance the slides. There doesn’t seem to be a way to stop that. Anyway, I’m using this for my 12-13 year old class I just got called to teach, so we’ll see if this helps get them more engaged than me just talking and hoping they are listening.

Leave a Reply to Aaron Crowder Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You May Also Like
Img 2156

Please pray for the people in Ukraine!

Please pray for the people in Ukraine! A full scale invasion has commenced and explosions are being reported in Kyiv (temple pictured).   The Presidency of the Eastern European Territory…
View Post