Bit-O-Tech - November 2024

 Get Your Google On

"Everything you need to make extraordinary work can be found in your ordinary life." -Sister Corita Kent

I always begin any Google-based training or professional development presentation with a disclaimer.  I know a LOT about Google.  I've gotten certified as a level 2 educator and as a trainer and am working on my Google Certified Coach credential.  I know a LOT about Google.  But I don't know everything.  And just when I think I've got a pretty good handle on it, Google changes something or unveils a brilliant new feature.

And while I do like Google's "never stop never stopping" philosophy, it does sometimes become challenging to keep up the latest and greatest that it offers.  It's even more challenging to help my fellow educators be aware and figure out how to implement, integrate and start using the new stuff.

So with the prospect of many teachers having professional development and parent teacher conferences right before Thanksgiving, I thought it might be a good idea to do an All-Google edition of Bit-O-Tech to share with you some of my absolute favorite new and not-so-new things Google offers and things you can do with Google applications.

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Docs Now Has Tabs 

This fantastic feature came out in the fall and I still don't think many people know about it or have thought about how to utilize it.  Google Docs now has the ability to have "tabbed" sections within a single document.  Imagine a single document that serves as a notebook for a student's class notes; a research paper that has numerous sections and components that you can keep neatly separate, organized and easily navigable; a large writing project or resource document that has numerous chapters that you can now easily work in.  Yeah, Google Docs does that now.  You could go a step further and create a single document with tabs for each of your students.  Each student works on their own tab and you only have to monitor a single file.  

Depending on your default settings, when you open a Google Doc the tab toggle will be just to the left of your actual doc.  If you've already become accustomed to using the title, subtitle and heading settings then this will be not be a big stretch for you.  If you're jumping into this for the first time, click the bullet points icon to the left of your doc and you should easily see your tab possibilities.  Add a tab with the '+' sign.  Click the 3 dot menu on each tab and add a subtab or rename your current tab.  You can drag to reorder your tabs.  It's all pretty darn "tab-ulous."

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Give Forms Five Stars

This is not a huge feature in terms of actual productivity but it can make some of your Google Forms evaluations and exit tickets a LOT more fun.  In lieu of a "Linear Scale" question, you can now select a "Rating" style of question.  You can adjust the number of ratings (but why would you want anything more or else than a 5-star system?) and you currently have a choice of icons: stars, hearts and thumbs up.

A great deal of my forms that have rating questions have and will be turned into these type of questions.  It's just a little more fun.  And I definitely think everyone could use a little more fun these days.

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Get Notified  . . . Google Sheets Style

One of the best features about working in Google Workspace applications can sometimes be it's most challenging to manage.  Collaboration.

Google offers the ability to work collaboratively on every single one of its applications and file types.  Sometimes that gets a little difficult not knowing who's doing what or when they've done it.  Yes, there's version history, but that takes time.  Google apps have a notification feature.  Particularly, Google Docs and Google Sheets.  That's right.  If you're working with someone across the country on a paper, or having staff enter their data on a spreadsheet throughout a period of time, and you'd like to know when something changes without having to always open and look for it, you can configure notification settings.  Docs allows you to be notified is someone adds or removes content.  Sheets will also let you know when it's data changes as well has who has changed it.

This Sheets feature is very useful as you can set notifications for when ANY changes are made OR when a user submits a form.  You can configure the notifications to be sent right away or set them as a daily digest.  Both the Docs and Sheets notification settings can be found  by going to Tools → notification settings and you will be able to see all of the options available to you.

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New Templates for Google Slides

If you're anything like me, you spend way too much time finding the perfect look for any type of media you're creating.  Whether it's a color palette or finding the perfect font, sometimes you just want new choices.  I used to spend a great deal of time poring through a couple of slide template websites (and I still do) but Google now offers twenty-seven new slide templates for you to use in your presentation work.  

Once you've selected a templated and inserted the desired slides into your project, then you can customize the font and size, add more graphics or completely re-work the template in the Edit theme area ( Slide → Edit theme ).  However, to get started looking over all of the new possibilities, open a new Google Slides document (or an old one) and navigate to Slide → Templates and enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving!