With this post I’ll begin a series on the main apps in Google Docs:
- docs homepage,
- documents,
- spreadsheets,
- forms, and
- presentations.
Hopefully this will help you integrate these amazing tools into your classroom in a way that works for you. As always, I love to hear what you (and your students) have discovered, so if you have additions to what I’ve written or other uses/shortcuts/tips, please add comments below!
In this first post, I thought I’d put some quick tips that you may or may not know in navigating the google app world:
1. Logging in. Do you always type in go.oes.edu? Yes, this will get you there, but you can also make an iGoogle page where you have your docs list, calendar, and anything else you’d like. You can customize your gadgets, so that when you open your browser, it’s one click to your calendar or one click to your most recent docs. You can also bookmark the docs homepage, but you probably want to organize your bookmarks using the bookmark manager.
- Need to make an iGoogle page? Check out my previous post.
2. New Google Navigation. Did you notice that it is black now? Me too. Other than that it doesn’t seem very different. Click on the “more” tab and you can find groups, which might be useful, but if you go to “even more” there is a HUGE list. Check out:
- iGoogle (hint hint)
- Talk
- Translate
- Reader (I use this everyday)
- Labs (seriously cool stuff like undo sent emails, flair for calendar events, dim events)
3. Zoom. Does all the text in your browser look really small? Or everything is really big?
- Zoom in: Command +
- Zoom out: Command –
- Want more general tips? Check out this Huffington Post Article: 25 things all mac users should know
- And, of course, the Google Apps Education Training Center – for people interested in becoming Google Certified. More to come about an OES cohort.
Julie Kallio, PhD 