Many educators and students in New England are now experiencing their second week of remote learning. It’s been an adventure for sure. Now that most of the communication is happening solely online, I have found myself using more and more keyboard shortcuts. I am still the mouse user (I know that that this is a rarity, but it is true), but I have been trying to force myself to use more keyboard shortcuts to help save time. Think about all the clicks and dragging on a trackpad or mouse you do in a day. Think of all the seconds that it takes out of your day. Now add that up throughout the week. It becomes a substantial amount of time. Below are some helpful keyboard shortcuts that you might find useful.
Gmail
In order to get keyboard short cuts to work in gmail, you do have to enable them. Click on the settings gear on the top right corner, and select settings. Then, in the advanced tab, enable custom keyboard shortcuts. Then hit the save button. Now the keyboard shortcuts should be available to you in your gmail. See image below.
The following keyboard shortcuts work while you are in gmail.
- Compose a new email: c
Inside of an email message:
- Reply to an email: r
- Reply all to an email: a
- Send an email: MAC users: Command + return (Chromebook: Control + enter)
- Delete an email: #
To see a full list of keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, click on the settings gear on the top right corner. The go to Keyboard shortcuts menu.
Chrome
The following keyboard shortcuts work while you are in Chrome. I have found these to be particularly helpful over the past few weeks.
Google Meet
The following keyboard shortcuts work while you are in a Google Meet. Big thanks to Donna Dennis for creating the visuals.
The purpose of this blog post is not to say that you must learn these keyboard shortcuts. These are just some shortcuts that I have found myself using over the past couple of weeks. My hope is that knowing some of these might help streamline your work flow a bit and gain some time in your day. Start with learning one shortcut – keep forcing yourself to use it and eventually you will get accustom to the shortcut.
I hope that remote learning is going as best as it can for both you and your students. You know where to find me if you have any questions. And that is my Spiel…
Craig M Sheil 