I hope your vacation has begun and you are having a happy summer. If not–it will be here soon! As always, I’m relaxing and spending time with family and friends this summer, but I’m also taking time for a little professional learning.
Every week between now and the end of summer break, I’m going to share one classroom tech tip. It’s my goal to make these small bits and easy to implement.
This week I want to talk about using Gifs in the classroom. If you follow my blog, then you know I use them all the time, but for some reason, I’ve never used them in class. Next year, I plan to use them for short instructions. They are perfect for making short visual demos for students.
I’m going to show you three easy ways to make them:
1. Slide Image Demos:
– In PowerPoint, make a series of slides with your instructions.
– Save them as PNG images.
– Upload the images to a free gif-maker site. My favorite is ezgif.com.
– Follow the prompts and download your gif!
2. Video Demos:
– Upload a video (or screen cast) you’ve made to ezgif.com.
– Select up to a 30 second portion of it.
– Turn it into a gif and download.
3. Screencastify:
– I pay $24 a year for premium screencastify. It’s a Google extension that you can get in the Chrome Store.
– You can record your screen and download directly as a gif with the premium version.
Insert your Gifs into PowerPoints or Google Slides as directions and demos for your students. These make excellent visuals!
How do you use Gifs in your classroom? Leave a comment and let me know! And don’t forget to check back in next week for the next quick Tech of The Week tip.
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