Adding Timers to Google Slides

Aug 29

Google Slides are one of my favorite tools to use in the classroom. I love using slides to help manage my students when they are working in centers. As students rotate from through centers, they can easily see what group they are in as well as the center. Adding a timer to my slides also helps me to keep track of how much time each group will have at each center.

There are multiple ways that you can add a timer into your slides presentation. In this blog post, we will cover step by step on how to add timers to your presentation using the Slides Timer Chrome extension and a video timer using a YouTube timer. First you should begin by creating your slides. Once you’ve created your slides, use the steps below to add a timer.

GOOGLE SLIDES TIMER USING SLIDES TIMER CHROME EXTENSION

Adding a timer into your slides using Slides Timer Chrome extension is a great way to add a timer that blends in with your slides background. Using the Slides Timer Chrome extension allows your timer to become a seamless part of your presentation. There are a few pros and cons to using this method over the traditional YouTube timer method. I’ve listed the pros and cons that I’ve observed so far.

Pros

Allows you to create a countdown timer and a timer that counts up for your presentations.
Allows you to insert the current date into your slides.
Timer blends in seamlessly with your slides.

Cons

Counting up timer doesn’t come to a stop at a certain time.
No ability to pause the timer if needed.
Countdown timer doesn’t come with an alert that time has run out.

STEP 1: ADD SLIDES TIMER CHROME EXTENSTION

Start by searching for the Slides Timer extension on the Chrome Web Store. You can do a simple Google search for “Google Slides Timer” in your Google search bar and the first result will be the Slides Timer in the chrome store. Once you find the slides timer extension, you will need to select “Add to Google Chrome". The extension will now appear next to your URL search bar. In case you’re unable to find it in the store or by Google Search, you can find it here.

STEP 2: ADD TIMER TO YOUR GOOGLE SLIDES

Next, add a text box into your Google Slides document and place the time in between the << >> symbols. This will signal the slideshow to begin counting down once the slideshow begins.

STEP 3: START YOUR PRESENTATION

When your presentation begins, your timer will automatically begin counting down from the time designated in between the << >> symbols. Once the timer reaches 0:00, the timer will stop.