Several years ago, while I was an Assistant Principal at Ault Elementary, my awesome partner AP, Julie Clements (@jclements01), and I lead an online book study together. We wanted to have all of our participants create a #BookSnap as evidence of their learning and as a way to process their reading. If you aren’t familiar with #BookSnaps, the original idea was to snap a picture of a page from a book and using the SnapChat app, add annotations, bitmoji’s, and stickers to elaborate, express your feelings, or connect with the quote.

Check out what Tara Martin (@TaraMartinEdu), the inventor of the #BookSnap. shares in her first post explaining how #BookSnaps came to be and how to create them by clicking this link.

Here are some examples of #BookSnaps that I have created in the past:

While Julie and I loved this idea and both had experience deepening our own personal learning by creating #BookSnaps, we knew that creating #BookSnaps for our online book study had several constraints:

1. Not everyone was familiar with this instructional strategy, and
2. Not everyone had SnapChat or would be willing to download it

These same constraints may be true for professional development – or even classrooms with students – that you lead. Here’s what we came up with: A Collaborative Google Slide Deck! Did you know that you can snap a picture using your webcam RIGHT FROM SLIDES?? And, by sharing ONE slide deck with ALL of your students, you don’t lose the social aspect of sharing and learning from each other that we loved about SnapChat!

Check out these images from our #BookSnaps Google Slide deck – our instructions and examples from our Kids Deserve It book study:

Thought of a way you might be able to use this strategy with adult or student learners?

Click here to grab a copy of the Booksnaps Google Slides Template that you can edit for your own classroom! 

Want more ideas for Google Slides assignments like this one? Check out this blog post featuring 5 different Collaborative Google Slides Templates!