Week 12 - Using Google Slides to create your own app

This week I was inspired by a music ed tech blog to try using Google Slides to create my own app.  The author discussed how Google Slides is a web-based tool that generates its own link, and allows you to link one slide to another slide, then you could create a simple app that serves numerous purposes.  He decided to create an app that would serve as a note naming game. This would be a Jeopardy-type of game where students would practice naming notes.

Here are the steps he used to create the app using Google Slides:

"I started with a blank Google Slide Template and looked for a font that would imitate the Jeopardy font and turned the background blue. I added the instructions and made the game a cross-curricular math connection by having the students add up their own scores (see figure 1).

Figure 3

I added a graphic of a quarter note inside a door frame. I clicked on the graphic and then clicked on the “link” icon. This brought up a menu of where to go when the graphic was clicked. I scrolled down to “Next Slide” (see figure 2).

Figure 4

Using text boxes, the “Next Slide” was the Jeopardy board with all of the dollar amounts (see figure 3). I linked each text box to a slide with a question.  The question was to name the note name that appeared on the screen. To make the staff and note name, I utilized the line tool (to create a five-line staff), the shape tool (to create a note head), and google images (labeled for reuse) to find the treble clef (see figure 4). The answers were listed in their own individual text boxes. These answer boxes linked to an unhappy smiley face for incorrect answers (see figure 5) or a happy smile face for the correct answer (see figure 6).

Figure 5

Figure 6

Final Steps

Figure 7

Figure 8

The final steps were to create a link by using the link sharing tool and changing the permissions to “Anyone with a link”. Finally, from that generated link, change the end of the link, which is “edit#slide=id.p” to “preview”.

By doing this, when you share this link, it immediately makes the presentation go into view mode when clicked. This way, your students begin the game as soon as they click the link. In addition, if they are on an iOS device, this link will open up in Safari and they can click the share button and click on “Add to Home Screen” (see figure 7). This places the app onto their home screen (see figure 8)."

I used this app with piano students in class today on their classroom set of ipads and they had a lot of fun with the app. I am exploring more ways to experiment with using Google Slides to create more practice tools as well as assessments for my students in the future.

Link to original blog:
https://mustech.net/2018/07/notatiste18-takeaway-attempt-making-app-using-google-slides/