Going Google
Volume 2 - Issue 9
Maximizing Your Chrome Real Estate - Pinning Tabs and Bookmarks Bar
Google Chrome has a few features that help you control the space in your browser.
Pinning Tabs: Pinning tabs collapses the tab in your browser to just the icon for the website instead of the name of the website allowing more tabs to be open.
- To pin a tab, right click on it and choose “Pin Tab.” The tab now shifts to the left of your browser screen and shows the favicon or icon for the website.
- To unpin the tab - right click on it and choose “Unpin Tab”
Managing Up your Bookmarks Bar: You can also save space on your bookmark/favorites bar by editing the name down, or deleting the text all together just leaving the icon to show. This works best on websites that have unique favicons.
- Right click on the link on the bookmark bar - choose Edit.
- Delete the Text under name
- Click Save
The website is now represented by the clickable icon which allows for more links to be represented on your screen.
Adding PowToon in Drive
While in drive, you can add useful apps that will automatically allow you to save your work from these specific applications in Drive. One very useful tool is PowToon.
Powtoon’s mission is to address all of the frustrations that people have with Power Points and easily add animation and design to a presentation.
In order to add an app in drive, click on Create and Connect more apps. Type in PowToon and click connect. You will need to grant powtoon permission to connect.
From there, you can click Create and select PowToon. Now your PowToon Creations will be saved in your drive.
Once you have selected a template and named your PowToon, you can simply choose a style of icon and drag and drop it into your presentation.
Presenters can add their own images, music and text as well as using the stock music, and creative commons licensed photos available through Flickr.
Once you have compiled your complete PowToon, you can share it with others by either Exporting it to YouTube (not available on student accounts), or clicking the preview button and giving others the link to the preview.
Research has shown that if you have a script written out ahead of time, utilizing the images and animation features of PowToon are much easier. Otherwise students tend to go back to the Power Point Standard of just typing out the words they are going to say in their presentation.