I attended @jonathan.evans session on using Google to simplify IT at CITN. I’m considering using Google Slides for classroom presentations (leaving the main service with ProPresenter) and am wondering if anyone else has implemented this successfully?
I’ve run into a few issues I’m unsure how to overcome / if they can be overcome. The biggest issue is that while I can get the slide show to open full screen, I can’t get the videos to do the same - at least not automatically. e.g., when someone hits next slide, I want the video to fill the entire screen, not just a portion of the screen with a black border around it.
More minor issues I’m facing are:
I’m not a huge fan of the speaker/presenter notes setup. In ProPresenter you can see all slides at once (while the presentation is playing) and jump between slides as needed - Google Slides only shows the current, next, and previous slides…and has a big useless speaker notes area (since there aren’t notes in our children’s classrooms)
I haven’t been able to figure out a way to get Slides to recognize that I have multiple screens attached and to set a default screen for the presenter view and a default screen for the presentation (out) view.
If anyone has any suggestions on these topics, I’d love to hear them. I’m also taking a look at Proclaim…but I really like that Google Slides is part of the suite folks are already using and that it doesn’t require separate software to run.
To display a video full-screen, change the size of the video on the slide to be the same layout as the slide (you may have to change the height and width disproportionally, it will display fine when presenting), and then select “format options” where you can tell the video to automatically play
This will not be as polished/fluid as ProPresenter is for 2 physically connected displays. You’ll have to play with it, but in my experience Google Slides isn’t like PowerPoint/ProPresenter where you have 2 displays physically connected to the computer. You’ll either have to take the presenting window and send/move it to the 2nd display, or if you connect a ChromeCast to the 2nd display, you can use the Present to another screen option in Google Slides. If you decide to play with the ChromeCast route, make sure to get an Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast (performance is better than on just Wi-Fi). The ChromeCast Ultra ships with the power supply that has ethernet
We have started the conversation here on where it would be appropriate to use Google Slides instead of ProPresenter. There are some areas it won’t fit; I think it’s worth exploring as you are now. Just realize there will be compromises along the way.
Thanks for helping answer that @sross. I will echo what Shawn said, Slides is not as polished as propresenter but the simplistic scalability and deployment of files trade offs are worth it.
