Google Docs have been updated today and on the Presentation tool you can now add slide transitions! You can add animations! You can even add Word Art!
I’m gutted. I really am.
I love Google Docs and I share their use a lot. One of the things I loved was that the children were forced to use one of 15 templates and couldn’t add any animation or ‘PowerPoint nonsense’. We’ve all seen presentations with too many effects and animations and Google Docs didn’t let you do this. It meant children could make a presentation and focus on the content rather than the look and transitions. These can be important but surely content (and delivery) of a presentation is key.
But today, extra features have been added to Google Docs. These are nice features, but they’re not really new because they already exist in PowerPoint which most people have anyway.
So now it seems to be just like PowerPoint but with collaboration. Obviously this is a massive benefit, but the distinction between the tools is blurring. I wonder what the children will make of it?
Feel free to share why I am wrong. I have only played with it for ten minutes or so and I might be missing the killer feature, but I loved the simplicity that was there before.
I see where you’re coming from but I have to disagree. I really like the new features especially the collaborative aspect. Users can now work on the same presentation in real time, that is a great feature and one that will be of use in the classroom and not just the work place. I understand your reasoning over the use of animations but teaching children about how animations can be used effectively is more important than having the previous ‘simpler’ version of presentation where little or no animations existed.
Animations are a bane to some (teachers) and a joy to others (children) so we need to find a happy medium not ban them.
Now instead of having simplicity forced on them, they have to learn its value. I think children generally go mad with effects and such partly because they don’t have good models for presentations… When do mst teachers watch top notches presentations with their class and break them down into why they work well like we do with a written text? And I don’t mean just looking at PowerPoint slides, but a Halley watching presentations.
I only learnt the value of simplicity in presentations by watching masters such as Stephen Heppell and Steve Jobs and analysing what they did, and reading books such as those by Nancy Duarte. If you don’t study something, and then try it for yourself, you don’t learn it.
They need to analyse good examples explicitly and draw out what is powerful about them.. That and creating power points for actual presentations and not just as documents to hand in to their teacher. Do those two things and we should see kids focusing on message and meaning rather than just whizzy effects, and if they throw a few of them in as a bonus then who cares!
Ps, sorry for typos.. Writing very fast and iPad keyboard do not mix!
lol! The collaboration is fab & the new features ok, but yes, you are absolutely right about children now having to know why they shouldn’t be using them rather than them just not being available. To be honest I found some adults more disappointed with the lack of animation than the pupils.
Having said that though, the earlier pupils know how to be selective in their design choices and that simple is always best, the better!