Create, edit, and customize slides - The new version of Google presentations

Create, edit, and customize slides - The new version of Google presentations

The new version of Google presentations

Whether you’re trying to wow your boss with an end-of-quarter presentation or impress your classmates with an animated book report the new version of Google presentations can help.
Check out some of the new features in the latest version of Google presentations:

• Character-by-character collaboration: See updates in realtime as you edit presentations with other people.
• Drawing on canvas: Draw organizational charts, flowcharts, design diagrams and much more right within Google presentations.
• Transitions: Enhance your presentation with new ways to transition between slides.
• Shape linking: Turn shapes within your presentation into hyperlinks to other slides, presentations, or external webpages.
• Better animations: We’ve added new themes to make it easy to create show-stopping presentations.

Transition to the new version of Google presentations

We hope that switching to the new version of Google presentations will be a seamless transition. Here's how to enable the new version of Google presentations:

1. Click the gear icon in your Documents List and select Documents settings.
2. On your settings page, check the box next to "Create new presentations using the latest version of the presentation editor."
3. Click Save.

Once you enable the new Google presentations, all of your new presentations will be created in this editor. Any presentation you upload and convert to Google Docs format will be converted to the latest version of Google presentations.
The new version of Google presentations takes advantage of the most up-to-date technology, such as HTML5. For this reason, new Google presentations are only supported in modern browsers. For the best experience, we recommend using Google Chrome, which supports all of the new features in Google presentations.

Which version am I using?

An easy way to tell if you're using the new version is to if there there is a red plus sign underneath the File menu. If there's not, you're using the old version of Google presentations.

How do I upgrade my older presentations to the new version?

At this time, it's only possible to create new presentations in the new version of Google presentations. Older presentations will remain in the old format for the time being, and we'll eventually upgrade them to the new format to give you all of the benefits of using the new version.
You can copy old presentations into the new version by using the import slides feature or by copying and pasting slides using the web clipboard.

10 Predictions for the Future of Media

The future of media will include wearable devices, and they are coming soon, says GE's Beth Comstock. And she's hinting at a bit more than wristbands for iPods. Wearable media is just one of the predictions from this article from The Huffington Post (10/5/11).

A next-generation digital book

Looking for some inspiration and excitement about digital books? What can we come up with at Pingree?

Pingree Technology Team's Tutorials and Other Great Resources

The Pingree Technology team is always trying to help you by posting videos and step-by-step instructions on how to complete certain tasks.  Below you find the latest, two-minute, video I created on how to create a slideshow in iPhoto.

To access this tutorial and other great resources simply click the link below.  Be sure to watch and bookmark the link!

https://sites.google.com/a/pingree.org/pingtech/tutorials

The Future of Email - Gmail Motion

Ever wonder about what's next in the future of email. We will be transitioning to Gmail very shortly and just look at the features that will be able to access.

Be sure to check out the website at www.gmail.com/motion.

Giving Away Ebooks

Here's a cool idea that was recently seen at the Denver International Airport. 1st Bank had some large ads in the airport, giving away free ebooks. All you needed was a smartphone with a QR code reader - aim and scan the code - and you were directed to download a free ebook.

I'd say keep an eye out for this in our campus library next year. This would be a pretty great way to utilize our digital frame, if you ask me!

Now I'm Just Showing Off

Yes, now I'm am just showing off during my vacation week.

Laura and I are on a cruise to Honduras, Grand Cayman and Mexico. Just to show off the power of the Internet and the accessibility of GoogleApps, I wanted to create a blog post from the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

Since the ship offers wireless Internet, I can check email, modify and Google docs, and even create a Voki.

Oh and Laura also ran into a Pingree Alum on board.

Below are some photos of our cruise. Have a great week!




















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:SE 10th Ave,Fort Lauderdale,United States

Google Demo Slam Championships!

People are using regular Google Apps to create mind-blowing experiences.  Teams are now competing against each other on demoslam.com to come up with the best ways to demonstrate the power of Google Apps.

Watch each team battle it out at www.demoslam.com!



Try Google Translate at www.google.com/translate.  Remember you can now sign in with your Pingree email address and password.

And You Thought Skype Was Advanced...

Ray Kurzweil speaks of the exponential growth of technology.  In his book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, he outlines how fast technology has progressed and will progress over the next few decades.  In case you missed them, here are a few tech advances that are going on right now:

Texas Student Attends School as a Robot

Suspended Animation Conference, 2011

The Cloak of Invisibility

So You Think Your Robot Can Dance

Dave

Passwords: A Love Hate Relationship

Passwords, you can't live with them, and you can't live without them.


In today's world, there is a username and password for just about everything on your computer and the web.  Unfortunately, until finger prints, facial recognition, and/or retinal scans become more mainstream we will have to live with typing and remembering our passwords.


My suggestion is to relax, take a deep breath, and find a root word that you can easily remember, like Pegasus.  Then based off of that root word you can then modify it with numbers, characters or letters to keep it fresh and secure.


A great example of a password based on this theory would be 1Pegasus@537.  I can remember we have 1 mascot and we are located at 537 Highland Ave.  Utilizing a root word, along with a mix of numbers and characters will keep your information secure and easy to remember.


Please, whatever password or combination you use, try to avoid what this....Please watch.

"Real Page Numbers" now on Kindle

Good news on the Kindle front!

Amazon has released a software update for its Kindle e-reader that makes “Real Page Numbers” available for e-books, a move likely to bring joy to faculty lounges and book clubs alike. The new page numbers will match the page numbers in print books, so you can easily reference and cite passages.

Google Art Project

Google launched Art Project the other day. It is an amazing website where you can virtually explorer many world famous museums and paintings in unbelievable detail. They used Street View technology in making the museum tours and extremely high resolution photography that make it seem as if you're standing in front of the painting - except that you can get as close up as you want. You can see Van Gogh's brush strokes and Seurat's dots with amazing clarity and you can get up close to Botticelli's Venus -- so beautiful!

Below are some videos that gives you the highlights of the features. Take the time to check this out - it's worth it!

Click to go to Google Art Project





A Visitors Guide




Behind the Scenes

Google ≠ The Only Way to Research

I love Google.

But what I don’t love is when students use Google as their only research option.

And I don’t love when students focus only the first page of results (okay, let’s be honest, they may only look at the first few results- period). What about more useful websites that wind up deep in search results, outranked by websites that are commonly used but perhaps of inferior quality?

SweetSearch is one answer for those of you who share my concern about “Google as go-to.”

SweetSearch is a search engine designed with students and teachers in mind. Every single one of the SweetSearch websites has been evaluated by a core team of research experts and teacher consultants.

Not only does SweetSearch exclude spam sites, they are also constantly “fine-tuning” their search results, by increasing the ranking of websites from organizations such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, PBS, and colleges and universities.

You can find SweetSearch on the Pingree Library website as an academic resource for students. Perhaps, in the near future, students will be able to find a link to SweetSearch on your class Moodle page as well?

Google for Educators

Well, I'm sure that you all are reading this and saying to yourself, "not another thing for me to read, study, remember," etc. But please do not worry, all I am asking of you is to bookmark the link I have posted below.

Google is now providing services that Pingree, along with a thousands of other schools and businesses, are adopting. In the coming weeks, months, and years you are inevitably all going to become immersed in Google's technology.

So we, the Pingree tech team, are going to do all we can to educate and help you utilize all of the tools available. As we cannot do it alone, the address below is a link to a valuable resource that you can use to learn from other educators and to see what new features are available. When you click on the link below, be sure to sign up for Google's helpful newsletter.

http://www.google.com/educators/index.html

My suggestion to you is not to worry that this is simply another task to add to your to do list. Simply bookmark this page and make yourself aware that there are online resources available to support you.

I look forward to sharing some of the ways other educators are using Google in the classroom and beyond.

(Despite my enthusiasm for its products, I assure you I'm not on Google's payroll!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Technology at Pingree

There is a really great buzz about technology this year which is so exciting. I was going to list all the different ways technology is being used at Pingree and then I thought of a better way of doing this that might be more impactful. I'm sure I forgot a few but this is an impressive list. Click the link below to see a larger view of my Pingree Wordle. Anyone can make a wordle and publish it - try it out in your class!

4 students, 1 computer, no teacher...

Here is a Ted talk by Sugata Mitra who "...gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching."

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