Google Slides generally is used as a presentation tool for students to create presentations to show their learning. This is an awesome use in the classroom as Slides like all other Google tools can be shared and multiple students can work collaboratively on single presentation at the same time, so students can work together on a single presentation.
You can search for and embed Youtube videos into your slides?
You can adjust the size of slides to customize slides for printing, building posters, banners, signs, etc.
Google has added a question and answer feature to Slides that allows the students (or whoever the audience is) to type questions and send them to the presenter. The other students can then see the questions and vote (thumbs up or thumbs down) to move a question up or down on the list. As the presenter you can see the questions and then with a click of the button project the question right in the middle of your Slides presentation. This feature is a great way to engage students in back channeling discussion in a class. It is also a great way to engage students with using their devices purposefully during class.
Slides can be used to create beautiful (interactive if you choose) Digital Storybooks, even eBooks. The first step is to change the size of your slides to 8.5 x 11. Then insert images and texts on each page to create your story. You can add links within each slide to make your storybook interactive. You can then download the file as a PDF to create an ebook.
Using Google Slides to Show Understanding
Google Slides can also be used as a "Workbook", as such, or a presentation for students to show understanding. A teacher can create a template and share copies via Hapara Teacher Dashboard or students can create their own. Slides is especially useful in Div. 1 because Slides allows the ability to click and drag images around the page without interfering with text formatting like in Docs.
Showing Understanding Examples
Number Book
Nature's Alphabet
By sharing the document with editors you can easily create a collaborative writing project. Collaboration can between students by sharing the Slides with a specific person, but can also be collaborative between classes or even outside of your school/community/province/country!
Some Collaborative project ideas and examples are a Poem Anthology, A book study/review, Introduction to Blogging ("private" place to practice blogging/commenting before opening up to public blogging site), Research Project, Journalling.
Choose your own adventure stories are a great way for students to create interactive digital stories. Using Slides is an easier way to create these types of stories versus creating them using Google Forms (Click here for information on using Forms). Creating a choose your own adventure story requires some detailed planning to ensure the finished product is successful. Here's a planning template (created by Sylvia Duckworth) that can be used to organize your slides.
Creating a Choose Your Own Adventure
Dragon Quest by Eric Curt
Molly the Dog by a Gr. 2 class (click present for links to work)
Butterfly Friends by Mrs. Dido