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Free Tools for A Convenient Time

A (very) Brief History of Design


Created above is a short slideshow made with the intent to broaden some of my understanding and background knowledge regarding design beyond the educational design space. I found that Google Slides was a convenient tool for the different modalities I prefer to use when self-educating, but also in educating others. 

I like how slides allows me to cross pollinate an idea or concept with video, image, text aesthetics, graphs, and pre-provided layouts to build a cohesive but also unique learning experience. I struggle with Google Slides because there is not really any feature that can be embedded that a viewer can interact with. These sorts of tools must be sought elsewhere. It seems strange to me that I cannot even embed another Google product however (other than image from Google Photos). 

I know this was a preferred tool used by teachers during the pandemic, and I think Google Slides (and Powerpoints generally) have a great potential to shift into the AI and VR worlds when it comes to learning experiences. The imagined futures in which information and entertainment screens can literally live floating around us in simulation of the way memory in the brain is sometimes conceived of as a hallway of doors to memory 'rooms' portrayed in popular media (particularly cartoons, see here and here - combined with the idea of 'Content Agility' that first came across my radar via the movie Minority Report and is highlighted in this clip) is exciting to me and is where my mind drifted while using this tool and considering how I would want it used in a professional, educational, or personal setting.

Assignment Prompt: Go to Google Drive. In the upper-left, click the NEW button. Select either Google Sheets (like Excel), Google Slides (like Powerpoint) or Google Forms (for creating polls and quizzes). Create something in one of these apps that you feel could be useful for your work (now or future). Nothing too big or complex - just something to demonstrate that you played around with this tool. Make what you created Public (using the Share button in the upper-right) and link to what you created in a blog post. Explain in your blog post what you created and also describe what your impressions are of using this tool. How easy or hard was it to figure out how to use it? Are you interested in using it more?

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