Earlier this year, I provided a blog post on how you can create shortcuts in Google Documents so that you are not wasting time when providing valuable feedback to your students. To read this previous post, click HERE.
Last week, Mr. Geddes, came to Kerri Lunn and I asking how he can mimic a way of providing feedback he has done in the past by hand. He wanted a way to provide a check mark, like he would have with his pen as a means of agreeing with the statement the student shared. At first, we did not think it was possible until we looked further.
This is what we came up with:
STEP 1:
Find a check and an x that you will want to use to insert in a Google Document. To do this, open up a blank Google Document. Then choose Special Characters – found under the Insert Menu.
STEP 2:
Use the draw symbol box on the right hand side to find what you are looking for. You will notice that we drew in a check mark. Then, choose the green check mark so that it can be seen easily in a student’s paper. By selecting it, it will be inserted on your blank Google Document.
We did the same thing for finding an x to use.
STEP 3:
Copy the inserted check mark on your blank Google Document so that the shortcut can be created. To do this, click Preferences under the Tools menu.
We had Mr. Geddes type gpp (representing good point). This means anytime he types the letters gpp when providing feedback, Google will automatically replace it with a green check mark. You might be asking, why gpp? We did this so that incase Mr. Geddes would ever type the letters gp together it would not produce a check mark. By adding gpp, we have eliminated possibilities of those letters ever being together.
Once you type gpp in the replace box, paste the green check mark you copied from the blank Google document. Then hit the OK button.
STEP 4:
Repeat step 3 for the red check mark. This time, we had Mr. Geddes use wpp as the shortcut for the red x to appear.
STEP 5:
Open up a paper that you need to provide feedback on and use the shortcuts that you have created.
Note: Once you create a shortcut, they will always be available to you.
This solution may not solve all situations you might be used to/faced with when grading physical papers but at least this shows you possibilities that are available with assessing in Google Documents.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask – you know where to find me. As I have already tweeted out, we thank Mr. Geddes for pushing us. It is all about learning!
Craig M Sheil 