Category: efficient

Efficiency with Using Multiple Tabs in Chrome

Sometimes the ‘simplest things’ are the ‘best things’. One such example has to deal with managing your chrome tabs and windows. We all have experienced a time where we wanted to be able to see two different tabs in a chrome browser at the same time, but we don’t want to have to deal with bouncing back and forth from each of them to accomplish work. You also don’t want to have to manually select new window from the file menu of Chrome. So the solution you ask? Use two different chrome extensions, called Tab Scissors and Tab Glue.

Tab Scissors
You can get tab scissors from the chrome store, under the extensions section. By selecting this chrome extension, it will automatically create two different windows for you.

NOTE:
1. The two separated windows will take the same real estate as the original window. Thus you will want to make sure that the original window takes up the full screen of your computer.

2. You will notice in the GIF below, I want to be able to see the Sheil Spiel tab as well as the YouTube: Closed Captioning Google Slide presentation tab. Thus, because the Google Slide is the tab on the right side, I selected its tab before hitting the Tab Scissors chrome extension.



Tab Glue
You can get tab glue from the chrome store, under the extensions section. When you are ready to merge the two chrome windows back into one, you select the tab glue extension. See the GIF below.

Hope that this simple tech tip can help make you be more efficient with your work.

And that is my Spiel…

Customize Your G-Suite ‘Waffle’

Here is a quick tip for you when you are accessing information from you G-Suite ‘waffle’. No, I am not talking about the food item. The waffle is an unofficial term that is used when talking about the drop down menu of options for G-Suite applications, once an user is logged into their account. Google pre-populates the icons in the waffle for you. However, many people do not know that you can actually move some of the applications around based on your liking. Check out the demonstration below:


Steps:
  • Click on the waffle icon on the top right (make sure you are signed into your Google account.
  • Click and drag the application that you want to move.

A Couple of Notes:
  • It appears as though some tools will not show up until G-Suite notices that you use the tool. One example for me was Google Keep. I noticed that after I started accessing the website, the icon showed up in my waffle.
  • Some applications cannot be moved. For instance, Google Classroom, will not show up in the top section of the drop down windo. Not sure why this is. 
  • Some applications just do not seem to exist. For instance, it appears as though a Google Drawing shortcut does not exist.

And that is my spiel…

Use Google Form Templates for Exit Tickets & Course Evals

Over the past couple of days, I have spent some time looking at templates that Google has created for its products. More specifically, I came across some templates with Google Forms. Two of them that I feel could be very useful for teachers are the Exit Ticket and Course Evaluation templates. They are short sweet and to the point. I also like the fact that you have the ability to make any changes that you want with the templates by adding your own questions and/or deleting ones that you don’t find useful/important.

To see the template options, go to the Google Forms direct link forms.google.com. If you go the route of creating a new Google Form from your Google Drive account, you will not see the option to create a form from a template. But by hitting the back button, Google will bring you to their form’s homepage where you will see the available templates. The video below will quickly explain how to get to the Google Form templates.

When it comes to exit tickets, I know that there are tools out there that do the same thing, such as Socrative, but using the exit ticket template in Google Forms can be great for those instances that you

  • don’t want students to have to log into a different tool/system
  • don’t have a lot of time and want to quickly get the exit ticket to students through Google Classroom
As always, if you have any questions, you know where to find me.