Google slides is a great presentation tools, but it’s also very useful for student work and gives you a versatile canvas to do a lot of graphic things. To even further it’s capabilities, there are add-ons that you can use to expand what you’re able to do. The following are a few of my favorite add-ons for Google slides that students and teachers alike can use.
Icons by the Noun Project
First is Icons by the Noun Project. The Noun Project has created a database of icons that you can easily import into your Google slides. This is a good way to add visual aspects to any information you may be using in Slides and can add a little bit of creativity to a slide. Be forewarned, though. This is a free/paid thing. The free version limits how much you can use, but what you can use is useful.
Slides Toolbox
Slides Toolbox is an add-on that will give you a sidebar to help you format text on your slides. Rather than going through several steps and several clicks, Slides Toolbox has formatting features that are one-click away. I can do a lot of things to text and even do some stuff that would be more difficult and time-consuming to do on your own, like rainbow text.
Unsplash
Unsplash is probably my favorite add-on for Slides. Unsplash is a website that does high-quality royalty-free images. They have an add-on for Slides that allows you to import pictures from their site directly into your slides. One of the best parts of this is that the add-on will automatically crop and fit the images to the size of your slide, so if you’re using pictures for backgrounds, you don’t have to do anything other than click on the picture. You can use pictures as backgrounds or as visual aids for a slide.
Pear Deck
Okay, this is bonus add-on that’s just for teachers, but I love using this, so I couldn’t ignore it. Pear Deck allows you to turn a slides presentation into interactive student response Slides. You can use the add-on to add interactive questions, critical thinking slides, and so on. Students can log on to your presentation on their own device while you’re presenting it and follow along. When you get to interactive Slides, they add their responses as you go along, giving you real time feedback.
The add-on gives you direct access in Slides to all of the template Slides they have. There’s a wealth of templates and Pear Deck adds to it regularly.
When you’re ready, you can present your presentation through Pear Deck directly from Google slides. Use this, along with the Pear Deck power-up extension, to ensure that videos, gifs and such work properly.
The Educator's Quest 