If you use Google Docs in your online course or share them electronically with your face-to-face students make sure they are readable. Some students use a screen reader to assist them. Here are three tips with the needed steps to make your Google Docs more usable.
Similar to Microsoft Word, Google apps support the creation of templates for documents with particular pre-formatted layout and style requirements. Templates are a simple–often overlooked–tool for saving time by eliminating the repetitive processes of formatting and layout. Templates help reduce cognitive overhead by allowing users to focus on creating content.
By design, Google Applications offer bare-bones formatting and functionality, but sometimes you need additional features to support your purpose. This week’s Teaching Tip introduces five add-on like the Google Doc Highlight Tool which allows you to designate a certain color of highlight with a theme. Once done, you can gather those selections, organize them by themes, and share the results with others. Explore more!
Google Applications for Education are constantly changing. New features and functionality are added and updated on a regular basis, there is no need to wait for a version update or service patch, it just happens. One new feature that has recently been added to this suite of tools is a just-in-time training option for learning that is located right inside the application itself.
Google provides a variety of professional development pathways for those who want to become more adept at using Google Apps with students, including two certification programs. Even if you don’t finish the program, instructors will have a better understanding of how to use the different Google applications in a meaningful and purposeful manner that relates to activities you could actually do in a classroom.
One of the great things about Google Apps for Education is that you never have to install an update — they update automatically. But this can be frustrating. Just when you thought you were familiar with the interface, Google changes it. A lot of such changes have happened over the past year.
Thanks to Google, we have access to a plethora of tools to help us get stuff done. This week’s Teaching Tip focuses on a few ways to extend the functionality of the Google products we already know and love – Chrome and Google.
Google Forms have so many great uses, both inside of the classroom and as a productive administration tool. The power of Google Forms comes in the collection of responses into a Google Sheet which has similar basic evaluation capabilities as Microsoft Excel.