Google Slides – Jake Miller

Alayna AI for Google Slides: Create Stunning Presentations Without the Time Crunch

Let’s be honest about our relationship with Google Slides. Do you find yourself toggling between two extreme presentation modes? Either rushing to dump plain text on white backgrounds or spending hours perfecting every visual detail but not saving enough time for the actual content? If you’re nodding along, you’re definitely not alone in this presentation predicament.

Time is the culprit behind our slide-making struggles. As educators, we’re constantly racing against the clock, trying to create materials that are both informative and visually appealing. This is exactly why AI-powered slide creation tools like Alayna AI are grabbing attention in the education community.

What is Alayna AI?

Alayna AI is a Google Slides add-on that might change how you approach presentation creation. This tool generates complete presentations from simple prompts, articles, or even YouTube videos. Just imagine typing in your topic or uploading some materials, and—presto!—you’ve got a structured, ready-to-go slide deck.

But Alayna AI isn’t just another basic slide generator. It delivers presentations that strike that elusive balance between substance and style that many of us struggle to have time to achieve–on our own.

What makes Alayna AI stand out:

Creates visually engaging slides (not just black text on white backgrounds)
Incorporates relevant, appealing images automatically
Includes detailed speaker notes to support your presentation
Uses professionally designed, educator-friendly templates
Supports content for all grade levels and subjects
Offers options to adjust for different learning levels and languages

The result? Presentations that don’t scream “I made this during the last five minutes of my planning period.” Instead, you get polished, professional-looking slides that you can proudly display to your learners or colleagues.

Differentiation Made Easier

One of the most powerful features of Alayna AI is its support for differentiation. The tool allows you to adjust content for various learning levels and even different languages. This means you can create multiple versions of your presentation tailored to the diverse needs of your learners, without starting from scratch each time.

Image generated using Canva AI Image Generator (Pro) from the prompt “A teacher surrounded by diverse students (different ages, ethnicities, and learning styles), while multiple versions of the same slide presentation float around them: one text-heavy, one simplified, one translated into another language. Vibrant and inclusive, highlighting accessibility and adaptability.” August 17, 2025.

Imagine being able to quickly generate a more visually heavy version for some learners, a text-simplified version for others, or slides in another language for English language learners. Alayna AI makes these adaptations more accessible, helping you meet learners where they are without multiplying your workload.

Important Considerations Before Using Alayna AI

Before you rush to install this add-on, there are several important things to understand about Alayna AI’s terms of service and privacy policy:

Key points to know:

For educators only — Users must be at least 18 years old to create an account
Not for student use — While you can present these slides to your learners, students cannot use the tool themselves
Limited knowledge base — Unless using the web research feature, the AI’s information stops at 2021
Third-party processing — Your prompts and uploaded files are processed using OpenAI and Anthropic models
Data retention — Your uploaded content stays on their servers for 30 days before deletion

The limited knowledge base is particularly important to note. If you’re creating presentations about current events or recent developments, you’ll need to double-check the information and possibly update it manually. This is a common limitation with many AI tools, so always verify any time-sensitive content.

Privacy Considerations

As with any AI tool in education, privacy deserves special attention. When using Alayna AI, it’s best practice to:

Privacy best practices:

Avoid including any student-identifying information
Stick to general lesson content in your prompts and uploads
Remember that your prompts and files are processed by third-party AI models
Be aware that while your data is processed by these models, Alayna AI states it isn’t used to train the AI

The good news is that according to their policies, your data is stored securely and automatically deleted after 30 days. Still, maintaining awareness about what information you’re sharing with the tool is always important.

The AI Reality Check

Let’s take a moment for an important reminder that applies to all AI tools: the output isn’t always perfect. While Alayna AI might create impressive presentations, you should always:

Proofread all generated content
Verify factual information, especially for recent events
Make personal tweaks to align with your teaching style
Add your own educational insights where needed

Think of Alayna AI as your presentation assistant, not your replacement. The final touch of an educator’s expertise and personal connection to the material is what transforms a good presentation into a great learning experience.

Is Alayna AI Right for You?

If you frequently create presentations and struggle with either the time constraints or finding that perfect balance between content and design, Alayna AI could be a valuable addition to your toolkit. It’s particularly useful for:

Educators with packed schedules who need to create presentations quickly
Those who want professional-looking slides without design expertise
Teachers working with diverse learners who need differentiated materials
Anyone who wants a solid starting point that can be customized

However, if you enjoy the creative process of building presentations from scratch or need highly specialized content that might challenge AI generation, you might find Alayna AI helpful as a starting point rather than a complete solution.

Getting Started with Alayna AI

To begin using Alayna AI, you’ll need to:

Visit alayna.ai/slides-generator
Install the Google Slides add-on
Open Google Slides and access the add-on from the Extensions menu

From there, you can start generating presentations by providing prompts, uploading materials, or linking to content like YouTube videos. Once generated, you can edit and customize the slides just like any Google Slides presentation.

Your Experiences Matter

Have you tried Alayna AI for your presentations? I’d love to hear about your experience! How well did the tool work for your specific needs? Did it save you time? Were there aspects where it exceeded your expectations or areas where it fell short?

Image generated using Canva AI Image Generator (Pro) from the prompt “A community of teachers sitting in a circle, each with laptops open, sharing their AI-generated slides with each other. Speech bubbles with small icons (thumbs up, question mark, lightbulb) float above them. Collaborative, warm, and community-driven style.” August 17, 2025.

Or perhaps you’ve found another AI-powered presentation tool that works better for you? Share your insights in the comments below.

After all, the best way to navigate these emerging technologies is to learn from each other’s real-world experiences in the classroom. Your feedback not only helps fellow educators but also contributes to the ongoing conversation about how we can thoughtfully integrate AI tools into education.

Why not give Alayna AI a try for your next presentation? You might just find that elusive middle ground between rushed content and perfectionist design that we’ve all been searching for.

🧠 Need a visual? This short video breaks it down perfectly.

Import and Edit Google Slides in Quizizz

Quizizz has made a ton of updates in the last few months—Time for us to catch up on them!

First up, if you’ve done lessons in Quizizz, you know that you can import Google Slides into your lesson. They typically come in as a static, uneditable image of that slide. They’re now rolling out the ability to edit those slides in Quizizz. So, it breaks the slide apart into separate elements that can then be edited.

This is not perfect because some images and fonts come in a little wonky – think about what happens when you bring a Word Document into Google Docs or a Google Slides into Powerpoint – yah, same kind of situation. So, you might find that your slides don’t look quite right or that you can’t edit what you want. For example, this was a minor one, but I kept finding that it inserted a big white rectangle for the background from my slide.

That’s no big deal, but if you have a complex slide with crazy fonts, you may have more issues. If you know that your slides are perfect and you want to avoid anything getting messed up, choose the Uneditable Slides option, and they’ll come in as static images just like they used to. But, if you want to edit them within Quizizz, choose the editable option.

This, by the way, is available on all accounts.

Continue reading Import and Edit Google Slides in Quizizz

Create Google Jamboard Backgrounds in Google Slides

Google Jamboard is a good tool for collaborative activities in the classroom or virtual learning environment, but it’s missing some features that could make it an amazing tool. Among those absent features is the ability to design your frames (the “slides” in a “Jam”) in ways that you might design a Google Slide.

Well, don’t let that stop you! You can create your backgrounds and templates in Google Slides and then turn them into Jamboard backgrounds!

And, here’s a little bonus: You could have one Slides file with all of your Jamboard backgrounds and templates in it! Oooh – organized!

Check out the process – and a bonus tip for a quicker way to upload the image – in the #EduGIF below and then, under the animation, check out some step-by-step instructions! You can also view a video, with explanations here.

This animation shows the process of creating a Google Jamboard background in Google Slides. The steps are written out below the animation. — Check out a Pausable version of this #EduGIF here or a video version with an explanation here.

Continue reading Create Google Jamboard Backgrounds in Google Slides

Easily Add Audio in Google Slides with mote!

This is NOT a sponsored post. However, when it was initially posted, mote did provide me with access to an Unlimited account to try it out + is gave away FREE 1-year Unlimited licenses to 5 of my readers! (those prizes have already been given out) All opinions in the post, however, are my own.

🗣️ U!
🗣️ D!
🗣️ L!

UDL, or Universal Design for Learning, is the practice of making your students’ learning experiences–the content delivery, the demonstrations of learning, all of it–universally accessible.

And that means that we need to deliver content in as many modalities as possible. This is why I was super excited when Google unveiled the ability to add audio in Google Slides. However, my excitement was dampened by the lack of a straightforward process to adding said audio.

Record the audio here, save it there, upload it here, then add it to your Slides.

Can’t we just record the audio in Slides and have it appear in Slides? Please!?

Well, the team at mote has our back on this. Their awesome Chrome extension has been rocking feedback and other classroom processes with the superpower of adding audio comments in Google Classroom, Google Docs, and more. Then they let us use mote while we were surfing the web in Chrome. But now they’ve really outdone themselves . . .

👉 Use the extension to record while you’re in Google Slides and it pops it right onto your Slide. 🤯

Check it out in the #EduGIF below and then, at the bottom, enter to win one of 5 FREE Unlimited mote licenses!

Isn’t that awesome? So slick, so easy, and so good for tons of different learning scenarios.

While the super generous free version gives you these capabilities with audio recordings of up to 30 seconds in length, some of you Chatty Cathys and Talkative Tommys may need a few more ticks of the Apple Watch. That’s where the Essential and Unlimited plans and their 90 second-limit come in. You can learn more about the plans here.

16+ Formative Assessment Tools for #RemoteLearning!

Wow. March 2020 has been quite a month. And buckle up, folks, because it looks like April is going to be more of the same.

For many educators, that means screencasts of lessons, assignments in learning management systems, and lots of time on Zoom or Google Meet.

But what about Formative Assessment? If we’re going to teach new content during these extended school closures caused by the coronavirus and COVID-19 (I’m not sure if we should, but that’s another post) then we need to know if students are comprehending that new content!

So, I put that question out to the Duct Tapers (listeners to my podcast, the Educational Duct Tape Podcast). I got a handful of answers, which I featured in Episode 39b of the podcast.

A week later, I reached out for even more ideas! On Wednesday 3.25.2020, I hosted a #EduDuctTape Twitter chat focused on this and 2 other #RemoteLearning concepts. So, based on the thoughts shared in the episode and the ideas shared in the Twitter chat, I’ve got a BUNCH to share with you! So let’s dig into it! Continue reading 16+ Formative Assessment Tools for #RemoteLearning!

Slides Timer Extension

Two and a half years ago, I made an #EduGIF about adding timers to Google Slides using YouTube Videos and posted it on my site. Well, it’s time to introduce a new option.

Clay Smith is an educator in New York City. He’s also a talented coder. And that coding talent extends to gSuite Add-Ons and Chrome Extensions. The newest in his repertoire of projects is Slides Timer, an extension that makes certain text placeholders in Google Slides text boxes come to life as timers when in present mode.

As Clay’s site explains, the extension accepts 3 different placeholders:

<<5:00->> will count down starting at 5 minutes.

<<2:00+>> will count up starting at 2 minutes

<<time>> will display the current time in AMPM format

Judging by the feedback form on Clay’s site, I’ll guess that this extension is still a work in progress. There are a few things that I’d change, if I could, but it’s already an awesome option as it is!

Check it out in the #EduGIF below!

Animation shows the use of Clay's Slides Timer Extension in action. — Pausable version of this #EduGIF available here: youtube.com/watch?v=16iqS5cWVZ0

Adding Audio to Play on a Set of Google Slides

Not long ago, Google finally added the functionality of adding audio to Google Slides for all users. And, not long thereafter, we started asking for improvements! 😬 Hey, it’s what we do! 😃

In this post, I’m going to share with you a hack to get the most asked for improvement. It’s not an elegant hack (that’s an oxymoron, I think) but it’ll do until Google adds the actual functionality.

When you add audio, the main choice that you’ll have to make is
– “Do I want this to stop playing when I advance to the next slide…
– or do I want it to continue until the audio ends…
– or do I want it to loop until the end of the slideshow?”
Unfortunately, there’s no option to have it play on Slides 1, 2, 3 and 4 and then stop on Slide 5.

But what if that’s what we want? In this post, I’ll show you a hack to set your audio to play for a subset of slides, but not for others.

My first idea for a hack was adding a different piece of audio on Slide 5, but that just leads to both audio files playing simultaneously. Back to the drawing board.

My second idea worked. So, here it is… #EduGIF first, step-by-step instructions next.

Continue reading Adding Audio to Play on a Set of Google Slides

8+ Tools for Developing Learner Profiles

Mike Mohammad joined me in episode 28 of the Educational Duct Tape Podcast to discuss 2 questions that an educator might have. One of the topics that we discussed was learner profiles. Mike posed the question, “How can students create a profile of themselves as a learner to share with an audience beyond the classroom?”

While Mike and I did not discuss the it during the show, I want to quickly compare and contrast the terms learner profile and digital portfolio. While there are similarities (both are typically curated by the student, both showcase the students work in school and both are often done digitally) there are also some differences (typically, digital portfolios are a showcase of academic work and growth while learner profiles also often focus on the students’ capabilities, characteristics and aptitudes as a learner).

Regardless of which end result you’re looking to cultivate in your school (learner profile, digital portfolio or a blend of both), there are plenty of tools that you can leverage.

A week after the episode in which Mike and I discusssed this aired, I hosted a Twitter chat about the questions from our talk.

Here are some of the participants’ responses to the question about learner profiles:

Continue reading 8+ Tools for Developing Learner Profiles

Searching for Images with Transparent Backgrounds in Google Image Search

There are lots of reasons that you might need images with transparent backgrounds! Maybe it’s for a #StopMotionSlides project! Maybe it’s for a graphic design project! Maybe it’s for a green screen video or image!

No matter what your reason is for wanting an image with a transparent background, the easiest option is the same: do a Google Image Search for images with a transparent background!

There are ways to take images and remove their background, but if we can start with no background, that’s even better!

Search in Google > Images > Tools > Color > Transparent

Note: Unfortunately, this is not a perfect process. Using this strategy misses some images with transparent backgrounds and includes some images that it should have left out.

Check out the #EduGIF below. A Pausable #EduGIF is available here.

Graphic Design Tools in Google Slides: Align, Distribute & Center

On the Google Teacher Tribe podcast (one of my favorite podcasts) Kasey Bell & Matt Miller often refer to Google Slides as the “Swiss Army Knife of gSuite.” And I agree! There are so many things that you can do in Google Slides. In this post, I’m going to show you 3 super useful Graphic Design tools that are available in Slides.

Align – When you select 2+ objects (images, shapes, text boxes, etc.) you can align them horizontally (left, right or center) or vertically (top, bottom or center) with each other!

Distribute – When you select 3+ objects (images, shapes, text boxes, etc.) you can distribute them horizontally or vertically in relation to each other. This spaces the objects out evenly. It’s important to note that it’s based off of the positions of the leftmost and rightmost objects. So, get your left and right objects into place and then use this tool to distribute everything else out evenly in between.

Center on Page – This tool does exactly what you’d expect it to, but with one nice bonus – if you have multiple objects selected it will center them as a group. So, the objects themselves may not be in the center of the slide, but they will be arranged with the center of the group at the center of the slide.

A note for the Google Drawings fans out there: each of these items are also available there and work in the same manner.

Check out the EduGIF of these 3 tools in action below and, if it moves too fast, check out the Pausable EduGIF here.