Happy Mother’s Day!

We had such a great response to our Mother’s Day contest—thank you so much to everyone who participated!

Our Grand Prize Winner!

There were so many fantastic decks it was difficult to choose, but this one by Josh Zagorski (and his two super cute little boys) really touched our hearts. We hope their #1 mom loves it, along with her new iPad Mini! Congratulations, Jenn!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Awesome in Two Languages

This one, by JR Garcia, was notable both for its beautiful message in both English and Spanish as well as the extraordinary number of views it has received—wow! We were so impressed we decided to surprise JR with a $50 iTunes gift card. Be proud!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

All-Around Awesome

And this one, by Jeff Brown, was a late entry but we really loved the style, humor, and creativity. Jeff also scores a $50 iTunes gift card, for general awesomeness.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

More Inspiration

There were really so many fantastic entries—be sure to check them out on our Pinterest board, and it’s not too late to create your own Mother’s Day Haiku Deck message! Making mom feel celebrated and loved is an outright winner, we think.

Thanks again to all who participated–and a special Hai-5 to our amazing moms.

It’s Teacher Appreciation Day and Week here in the U.S., and we want to give a special shout-out to all of the amazing, innovative, inspiring educators in our creative community, all around the world!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Teacher Appreciation Tips

Just for our teachers, we’ve collected a few power tips to make your lives easier, save you time, and keep you (and your students) inspired.

1. Managing Accounts

The easiest way to manage a classroom of iPads is to create a single email account for the entire class to use. You’ll need to sign in to the app on each individual iPad once–after that, the app will keep you signed in. Have students include their name(s) either in the deck title or on the first slide so you can easily keep track of their work. Once students have published their decks, you can sign in to the website using the class email account to view all of them in one place (click Gallery, then My Gallery). Read more about publishing and sharing here.

2. Turning Auto-Capitalization Off

If you’d like students to practice correct capitalization as they work, you might also want to adjust the auto-capitalization setting as you’re signing in to your classroom account on each iPad. From the Main Screen, tap the Settings wheel, then adjust the Use Auto-Capitalization? toggle to OFF. Read more about Main Screen settings here.

Toggling Auto-Capitalization On and Off

3. Teaching Digital Citizenship

Haiku Deck not only helps students focus their message and explore visual storytelling, it’s a great tool for teaching digital citizenship as well. The app’s unique  image search taps into more than 35 million beautiful, high-quality images that have been made available for (free) use under Creative Commons license, and proper attribution is pulled in automatically. From Play mode on the iPad, tap the CC logo in the bottom right corner to view the photographer as well as the type of Creative Commons license. (In Web view, look for the CC logo in the bottom black bar.) Read more about our Creative Commons image search here.

4. Image Searching

Haiku Deck does include an explicit terms filter, which prevents searches on naughty terms. Unfortunately, we can’t control how photographers tag their photos, and it is possible for some “inappropriate” images to appear in the search results. (This is why Haiku Deck has a 12+ rating in the app store; you can read more about that here.)

We’re working on ways to improve this, but in the meantime, we’ve been thrilled to see many forward-looking teachers using this as an opportunity to work with their students on digital responsibility as well as digital citizenship. There are also some creative workarounds if you’d like to use Haiku Deck with your students and are concerned about image results:

• Do some searching on your topic ahead of time to look for (and possibly discuss) trouble spots.
• Create a folder or set of pre-screened images in Google Drive, Flickr, or Dropbox for your students to access.
• Have students generate their own images by using the iPad camera (here’s an example), or by creating illustrations and pulling them in off the camera roll, like this one:

Sample Haiku Deck Using Student Artwork

5. Publishing Without Email

We heard from teachers that many classrooms don’t have access to email, so you can now publish straight to the website. Tap SHARE, then select one or more categories and tap PUBLISH, and your deck will be published to your Gallery on the Haiku Deck website. If you like, you can tap COPY URL to grab the link right from the app. You can read more about publishing and sharing here.

6. Adding Notes and Printing

By limiting the amount of text on each slide, Haiku Deck encourages students to keep their message focused and to discuss their topic (instead of reading slides word for word). They can take their decks to the next level by signing in to the website (using the class email account as described above), opening their deck in Web Edit View, and adding supporting details and even links to more resources. You can then click DOWNLOAD (look for the text buttons immediately below the deck) to create a great-looking PDF that you can save, email, or even print. Read more about adding Notes here.

Sample Haiku Deck with Notes

7. Embedding in a Classroom Blog or Site

If you have a class blog or website, you can easily embed your Haiku Decks right from the app or from the website. From the app, tap SHARE, then PUBLISH, then POST TO BLOG. From the website, look for the EMBED button right under the deck. In either case, simply copy the code string and paste to your blog. Read more about embedding Haiku Decks here, and see a couple of Haiku Decks embedded in this great post on Free Technology for Teachers.

8. Ideas

If you’d like to see how educators are using Haiku Deck for a wide range of teaching purposes, from fact gathering to creative expression, be sure to visit our Education Case Studies Pinterest board frequently–we add new examples every week.

Haiku Deck Education Case Studies Pinterest Board

More Inspiration

You also might enjoy reading about 4th graders creating sensory poems and character studies, Haiku Deck for vocabulary development, and Haiku Deck Goes New School. We also invite you to participate in our brand-new Haiku EDU community on Google+.

And if you’d like us to feature your work, please email link(s) to gallery@haikudeck.com, or tweet us using the hashtag #hdgallery.

Teacher, thank you so much for everything you do! And if you have a question we didn’t answer or a tip you’d like to share, let us know! Drop us a line any time at team@haikudeck.com.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve given my mom plenty of books and flowers over the years for Mother’s Day, and this time I took a different tack. I created a special Haiku Deck to tell her all the important things she’s taught me over the years (click to view):

Yes, that’s me on the right.

One of the best things I’ve learned from mom is that anything is possible (yes, we really did find that hearing aid on the beach the next day), so here’s what I propose: How about a Haiku Deck Mother’s Day tradition? It would be so amazing to see an outpouring of Haiku Decks capturing the most memorable lessons our moms have passed down. Let’s fill the world with beautiful Mother’s Day Haiku Decks that are as unique and inspiring as our moms.

As an added bonus, I’ll personally pick the most creative, inspiring deck and send an iPad mini to the winner’s mom. I’ll even spend 30 minutes on the phone to personally teach her how to use Haiku Deck. (On that note, you can read how my own mom Ellen inspires us to keep things simple, and get her famous brisket recipe in Haiku Deck form, on our blog.)

How to take part in Mother’s Day, Haiku Deck style:

1. Create a Haiku Deck of “Things I Learned from Mom.” It doesn’t have to be long; just heartfelt. You can use your own photos, photos from our Creative Commons image search, or a mix. (If you live in a place that isn’t celebrating Mother’s Day this month, no problem–you can still participate!)

2. Send a link to your deck to gallery@haikudeck.com, or tweet it using the hashtag #hdgallery, by Thursday, May 9th at midnight PDT.

3. Be sure to share your deck with your mom as well as with your friends, families, and social networks–we’ll be judging decks based on their content and creativity as well as how many views they’ve received.

4. We’ll showcase all entries we receive on our special Things I Learned from Mom Pinterest board and the best ones in our Gallery.

5. We’ll announce the winner on Friday, May 10th and ship an iPad mini (16GB wi-fi with an engraved personal message) to the winner’s mom. (Of course, making your mom feel special is pretty much a win-win.)

Oh, and on the anything’s possible note? Our team is *incredibly* honored to be nominated for two different Geekwire Awards. If you could take 5 seconds to click through and vote for us for App of the Year and Startup of the Year before voting closes TODAY (April 30), it would definitely make us smile big–and make my mom incredibly proud. As always, thank you for your support and for being part of our amazing creative community.

Sincerely,

Adam

Co-founder and CEO, Haiku Deck

We love seeing how innovative educators are using Haiku Deck to bring creativity to iPads in the classroom. When we saw tweets from Annie Lafont (of Acacia Elementary in Fullerton, CA) about her students’ storytelling projects, we got in touch to hear more.

4th graders using Haiku Deck at Acacia Elementary

Q&A with Fourth Grade Teacher Annie Lafont

Haiku Deck: What inspired you to try Haiku Deck?

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We hope you’ve had a chance to download the latest version of Haiku Deck, try out all the cool new features, and set some new kinds of stories free! Our Gallery is bursting with beautiful decks, and for your own presentation inspiration, here are a few of our favorites. (Hot tip: you can now browse the Gallery right from the app! Learn more here.)

Lists

In “Through the Noise,” Fenella Olynick uses short lists (and the striking Picaresque theme) effectively to deliver her “students matter, teachers care” message. (Learn more about creating lists here.)

Click to view the full Haiku Deck

Colorful Backgrounds

If you’ve experimented with solid-color slide backgrounds, you might have noticed that the palette of color choices has been expanded. We love mixing in solid-color slides to punctuate the flow of a presentation. Check out how Therese Beale uses them to make her message pop in “Message Gap: Three Clues You Have One.” (Learn how to select a solid-color background here.)

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I just wrapped up a series of three webinars, Presentation Boot Camp for Power Agents, with our friends at TruliaPro. I have attended plenty of webinars and given many talks to audiences of all sizes, but presenting a webinar was an entirely new experience.

What was hardest to get used to was…the silence! I wasn’t nervous about talking to 1,000+ people, but I realized how much I depend on visual and audio cues to develop a connection with my audience, to read how things are going, and adjust. It was as disconcerting as the first time I rehearsed my Ignite talk with the slides timed to auto-advance every 15 seconds. But, just like the Ignite talk or any new presentation experience, practicing was the key. By the third session, the host and I had developed a comfortable back-and-forth dialogue to keep things moving, even though we’ve never actually met in person! (Hai-5, Jovan!)

Session 1: Three Keys to Presentations that Wow

Click to view the full Haiku Deck with Notes

In the first session, Three Keys to Presentations that Wow, we covered some presentation best practices that are central to Haiku Deck, but that can be applied no matter what presentation tool you’re using: in a nutshell, keep things simple, beautiful, and fun. We also touched on the #1 mistake that most presenters make (and which I’ve certainly made myself in the past), which is treating your slides like content-rich documents instead of visual aids to illustrate and enrich your message. Using the Haiku Deck Notes feature is a great way to avoid this pitfall.

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If you’ve already mastered the basics of creating Haiku Deck lists, it’s time to level up with some power tips!

1. Haiku Deck automatically adjusts the spacing for your list, based on the longest item. The less text you have, and the more uniform your items are in length, the better your lists will look.

2. If you need to reorder your list items, the built-in iPad cut and paste feature will save time. Hold your finger on your text, then choose Select or Select All, then Cut, Copy, or Paste.

3. Your list title will be centered by default. To choose left alignment, tap the green Layout icon, select your preferred layout, and tap the green DONE button.

Choose left alignment or centered

4. If you’re using a solid color background, choose one that coordinates with your theme. In the example below, the dark blue color looks great with the Zissou palette for charts and graphs.

Match the background to your theme

5. We’ve purposely limited the number of items in a list to 5, because there’s only so much your audience can absorb at a time! More on why simplicity rules here.

We’d love to see your Haiku Deck lists! Send your links to gallery@haikudeck.com.

If you’ve already mastered charts and graphs, resized your images, learned how make lists, and tried out the new, streamlined publishing flow, here are a few cool new features of Haiku Deck 2.0 that you can access from the Main screen.

Copy Decks

Haiku Deck already saves business users so much time that Walt Mossberg once commented the app would raise the national GDP, but pitches and presentations can now be easily modified for a new client, event, or meeting. Just tap and hold to copy a whole deck. (John James and Greg Bamford: This one’s for you!)

Copy a deck with a long press

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Note: This post has been updated to reflect the new publishing flow in Haiku Deck 2.0. If you have not yet updated your app, be sure to do that here. For getting-started Haiku Deck help, check out the Haiku Deck Tutorial.

The two parts of the Haiku Deck experience—the app and the website—go together like sushi and sake, like Mickey and Minnie, like…

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

(OK, perhaps we need a snack. Moving on…)

You can certainly create a Haiku Deck right on your iPad and show it off the same way over a power lunch or in a plane, but from our perspective, your Haiku Deck is not experiencing its full glory until you’ve completed these three steps.

Step 1: Create on the iPad

The Haiku Deck iPad app, of course, is where you exercise your creative genius. We’ve put a lot of thought into how to make this experience feel fluid and magical, through the dynamic image search and interfaces that keep typing to an absolute minimum. Instead of being chained to your desk to “work” on a presentation, you can “play” with your Haiku Deck whenever and wherever inspiration strikes–curled up on the couch, on the subway, over a cappuccino. (Tip: If you need more help with creating or editing a Haiku Deck, start with the Haiku Deck Tutorial.)

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One of the most frequent questions we receive is how to add videos to your Haiku Decks. We’re working on adding the ability to embed videos directly, but until we can make that experience appropriately simple, beautiful, and fun, here are a couple of workarounds to try.

Adding Videos: Export Method

This method is best when you’re giving a live presentation and you want a true embedded video that you can play right from your deck. The downside is that you’ll end up with a big file that won’t be as easy to post and share with your social networks.

1. Create your Haiku Deck and leave a placeholder slide for your video. You can import a still from your video as described below in the Notes Method, or you might try a solid-color background or an interesting abstract pattern, like this one:

Sample Video Placeholder Slide

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