How to share a Google Slides Activity using Google Classroom on the Computer

Technology is a wonderful thing!  One of the many awesome things about technology is that it allows us to connect with and provide educational opportunities for our students when we can’t be present with them.  It can, however, be overwhelming at times. Be patient with yourself and try not to get frustrated! We are all in this together! This post will explain how to share Life Over Cs Google Slide educational activities with your students using Google Classroom on your computer.

When you find an educational activity on Life Over Cs that is a Google Slide activity, you will begin as you do when you find all your favorite activities on our site.  Click the “Get Your Activity Here!” button, enter your email address, and click “Get Your Printable”.

You will receive an email containing an image of the activity, as well as a blue box that says “Get Your Activity Here”.   Now, this is where it will start to get a little different than what you are used to!

A PDF will pop up with the heading “Click on the image to select the version you need”.  There will be two images of the same activity, but below the activity on the left it will say “Google Slides” and below the image on the right it will say “Seesaw”.

You will click on the image on the left above “Google Slides”.

The most important thing to remember here is that you want to make a copy of the activity so that you are able to share it with your students and no changes will be made to the master copy.  Once you have made your selection you will automatically be presented with a pop up asking you if you would like to make a copy.

You need to click the blue “Make A Copy” that is under the question.  This will allow you to obtain a copy of the activity that can be opened in Google Slides and added to your Google Drive.

NOTE:  It will make your life a little easier if you are already logged into Google when you are trying to download the activity.  If you are not logged in already you may be prompted to log into Google Slides in order to open up the activity.

Once the activity has opened in Google Slides you will be able to interact with it.

Another important note:  You MUST be in edit mode in order to interact with each slide.  You will not be able to move any of the letters or manipulative pieces for the activity if you are in present mode.  If you are in present mode all the pieces of the activity will be locked, making it unable to be interacted with.

Once you have had the chance to interact with the activity and you are ready to share it in the Google Classroom with your students you will complete the following steps.

Go to classroom.google.com.  If you are not already logged in you will be prompted to do so.  You will see all of your classes displayed here on the main screen.   Click on the class that you want to share the resource with.

Choose “Classwork” from the top menu bar.

This will take you to a new screen and you will then click the Blue Oval that says “ + Create”.

A few different options will pop up.  You need to choose “Assignment”. (This step is very important!  Although you may not be grading anything, you must add the resource as an assignment so that you can provide each student with their own copy of the resource that they can interact with.)

Add a title for your assignment and provide any instructions that you feel your students need to complete the activity.

Click the box with the image of a paper clip that says “Add”.  Choose “Google Drive” from the drop down menu that appears.

Click on the resource that you previously added to your Google Drive from Life Over Cs and click the blue button that says “Add”.

This next step is VERY important!  A small picture of the resource will appear and there will be a box to the right that says “Students can view file.”

You need to click on the words “Students can view file” and change it to the option “Make a copy for each student”.  This will ensure that every student gets an editable copy of the resource!

Finally, if you are just providing this resource to your students for practice and do not want to grade it then you will need to make it an ungraded assignment.  In order to do this you will need to go to the right side of the screen where it says “Points” and pick the “ungraded” option from the drop down menu.

The very last step is to click “Assign” in the top right corner once you have followed all of the steps!  This will share the activity with your students in their Google Classroom.