Do you find students falling asleep during your PowerPoint presentations? Are you looking for ways to spice up your PowerPoint slides and make them more engaging? If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, you’ve come to the right place. It’s easy to create interactive PowerPoint presentations that students love with ClassPoint!
What is ClassPoint?
If you’re unfamiliar, ClassPoint is a free tool for teachers that allows you to quickly create interactive PowerPoint slides. In addition to making your slide shows more fun, ClassPoint also records student responses. Then, you can use the data to inform your instruction. No matter whether you are teaching in-person or in a virtual setting, ClassPoint is an easy way to increase student engagement.
One of my favorite things about ClassPoint is that it fully integrates with PowerPoint. I’ve used other interactive slides programs that require you to create in an outside program and upload what you create to PowerPoint. With ClassPoint, you create, share, and view student data inside of Microsoft PowerPoint. No other outside sources or programs are needed.
Interactive Activities for PowerPoint Presentations
ClassPoint provides five ways to make your presentations interactive:
- Multiple Choice
- Word Cloud
- Short Answer
- Slide Drawing
- Image Upload
Multiple Choice
The multiple-choice feature allows you to add up to six responses to a question. In the settings, you can decide whether students can only choose one response or multiple responses.
With this interactive activity, you also have the option to turn on a “competition mode,” which turns the questions into a game for students. When in competition mode, students receive points for answering questions correctly. All points are recorded on a leader board that you and students can view at any time.
Word Cloud
The word cloud feature is my favorite interactive activity in ClassPoint. For these activities, students type a one-word response. All of the students’ responses form a visual word cloud. Responses also grow larger when more than one student types a response.
Short Answer
The short answer feature allows students to type extended responses. This is a great way to have students share their ideas and explain processes.
Slide Drawing
The slide drawing feature allows students to draw or write on a slide. This interactive activity works best for labeling and drawing models.
Image Upload
The final interactive activity is the image upload feature. This allows students to upload an image as a response. Students can take a picture with their electronic device to upload or upload an image from Google Images. I like using this feature when teaching math because it is an easy way for students to upload an image of their work.
Creating Interactive PowerPoint Slides
To create interactive PowerPoint presentations with ClassPoint, you need to start by downloading ClassPoint for free. ClassPoint will then install in your Microsoft PowerPoint.
After ClassPoint is installed, click the “Inknoe ClassPoint” tab that appears at the top of the program. This is where you will go to add interactives and view student data.
It is important to know that you must create your PowerPoint slides first. Be sure to include any of the text and features that you want to be a part of the presentation. Then, you can use the “Interactive Quiz” options to add interactivity to each slide.
To add an interactive activity to a slide, click the “Interactive Quiz” you want for that slide. A box will appear. Drag the box to where you want it to appear on the slide.
You will also notice a bar appear on the right-hand side of the screen. This is where you can change the settings for the question. The settings you select will vary by activity and your unique students.
I recommend that you always check the box next to “close submission after ______” and use the drop-down menu to give students a set amount of time to answer a question. This will ensure students are paying attention and prevent them from taking too long to respond to a question.
Sharing Your Interactive PowerPoint with Students
After you create your interactive PowerPoint presentation, it is time to share it with students! In the “Inknoe ClassPoint” tab, make sure the box next to “Display class code” is checked.
Then, begin sharing your presentation as a slideshow. You will notice a box appear in the upper right-hand corner with a class code. Share that code with your students. Students will go to www.classpoint.app and type in the code. This will give students access to the presentation and allow them to interact with the questions you have created.
Students can access a ClassPoint PowerPoint from any device with the Internet including computers, tablets, and mobile devices.
In order for students to respond to a question, you will need to click the box you added to a slide that has the name of the interactive quiz question. After you click the box, students will be able to respond and you will see their answers appear on your screen.
After you have finished sharing your presentation, you can view students’ responses to questions by looking at the notes on each slide. You can also share a PDF version of the PowerPoint slides with your students by clicking the “Share PDF” button inside the “Inknoe ClassPoint” tab. When you share the presentation as a PDF, students will be able to view any annotations you made during the presentation.
Conclusion
If you would like more step-by-step instructions about how to create interactive PowerPoint slides, share your presentation with students, and view student data, be sure to check out my video all about using ClassPoint to make fun, interactive PowerPoint presentations.
ClassPoint also offers a premium version which allows you to add an unlimited number of questions to any presentation and share your presentations with up to 500 students. You can save 20% when you upgrade to the premium version by using the promo code CLASSPOINT20.
If your students are bored with basic slide show presentations and you want to increase engagement, ClassPoint is one of the best options for Microsoft PowerPoint. With ClassPoint, you can create interactive PowerPoint slides in minutes and monitor students’ interactivity as you go through the presentation.
