I am known around my school as being a ‘tech wiz’ – I know A LOT of time-saving tips, tricks, and hacks that leave my coworkers saying “What? I didn’t know you could do that!” Here are a few of my little-known favorites:
Skip pages while printing PDFs!
If you have ever spent your precious planning time sending individual pages of a singular PDF to the printer, arranging them into the order you prefer, and then sending them back through the copier to create student handouts that skip answer key pages, teacher directions, or just problems that you don’t like – this tip is for you! Did you know that you can use commas to specify which pages and in what order you want to print pages from a PDF? This tip has saved me a ton of time! I simply scroll through the document, jotting down pages I want to utilize. When I’m ready to print, I simply type in the page numbers with commas to separate them. This only sends the pages you want to use to the printer – saving time and resources!
Print to Save as a PDF!
Another easy thing you can do with PDFs is called “Print to PDF”. You can use the tip above to select the pages you plan to use with students and save just those pages as a separate PDF! In the print screen, select “Print to PDF”. Then, when you press print, the document pop-up will appear for you to name the PDF and identify which folder you want it saved in. This is really helpful if you want to share only certain pages of a PDF with students, and leave out others, like the answer key pages or teacher directions!
Freeze rows & columns in Google Sheets!
Have you ever been working on a large spreadsheet, and ended up totally lost? Before I learned this tech tip, I was constantly scrolling to see which student my data was in line with or what the question was! Freezing the first few rows or columns will allow you to see the information in those cells no matter where you are in the document, saving you time and your sanity!
To do this, select “View”, then “Freeze”, and then select how many rows and columns you’d like to freeze! Easy peasy!
The life-saving keyboard shortcut: Undo!
This is one that I recommend you teach ALL of your students during the first week of school! When they have deleted a text box, deleted their writing, or have no idea how they deleted their entire assignment, the undo keyboard shortcut can be a lifesaver! Pressing Control and Z at the same time will undo the last action that was done – meaning it has to be done immediately to work! I have this poster up in my classroom, along with a few other essential tech skills, to remind my students of this! If your students need a reminder, too, snag the poster set here!
Use revision history to save the day!
If you have ever had a student who has come up to you, in a panic, after having just deleted their entire essay, project, or digital assignment, this tip will turn you into the hero! Using the revision history of a document, you can revert a document back to an earlier version. Clicking on the clock icon with the arrow will open the history of edits on the document. Clicking on an earlier version will allow you to reinstate that version of the document, saving your panicked student from having to redo their entire assignment!
To access the revision history of a document, click on the clock icon with the counterclockwise arrow around it, located near the share button on the top right side of your document screen!
Extra tip: this is also a great way to catch a cheating student (not that we ever have those, right?)! Most documents will have a ton of ‘edits’ available, as Google saves documents automatically and often. If a document only has one or two edits, it may indicate that a student has copied someone else’s document to turn in as their own!
What tech tips would you add to this list? Share them in the comments below!
