5 Communication Tips for Educators

The Technology Department in White Bear Lake Area Schools uses the Four C’s as a lens for transforming classrooms and preparing students for the 21st century workforce. Communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking are important skills for both teachers and students and this week’s Tuesday Tech Tip is all about communication.

Quickly Link to Other Pages

Have you ever created a hyperlink? Don’t you hate highlighting the words you’d like to turn into a link, right-clicking, and selecting “Link” from the dropdown menu? Isn’t there an easier way?

Good news, reader! There is!

CTRL+K is the keyboard shortcut for creating links. Highlight however you like (double-click on a word to highlight it or triple-click on a word to highlight the whole paragraph), press CTRL+K, then paste (CTRL+V) the web address you’d like to link to.

It’s that easy!

Store Pre-Typed Responses in Gmail

Do you find yourself typing the same message over and over in emails? Do you get a question all the time that always has the same answer? Then canned responses are for you!

1. Go to your Gmail Settings (gear icon in the top right), then select Settings
2. Click Labs at the top of the screen
3. Scroll to “Canned Responses” and click the “Enable” radio button
4. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page

Now that you’ve enabled canned responses, it’s time to create and use some of them.

1. In a new email, click the “More options” arrow in the bottom right corner
2. Select “Canned responses,” then “New canned response…”
3. Type the message you’re tired of typing all the time and click “OK”

Whenever you’d like to insert this message, click the “More options” arrow and select it--no more typing that phrase!

This article has pictures of the process if you’d like those as well.(Fun fact: I triple-clicked on that sentence, pressed CTRL+K and CTRL+V and made it into a link. So easy.)

Safely Call and Send Text Messages to Parents

Does your work with students sometimes require you to call or send text messages? Do you want to keep your cell phone number private?

Fret no longer! You can send and receive text messages and phone calls with a Google Voice phone number that is not your actual cell phone number! Please only use your district account--never a personal Google account!

Set up a Google Voice account
Use Google Voice with Hangouts

There are more than two steps, but it’s relatively straightforward. If you run into any issues along the way, you can always contact your DLS!

Create Simple Animated Instructions

Do you have a short set of instructions you give all the time? Do you wish you could play it endlessly in a loop forever and ever?

Now you can!

With FlipAnim, you can create flipbooks for fun and function. Are you teaching a sequence in math? Put each step on a different frame. Are your students taking a test and silently reading at the end? Remind them of the steps with an animated GIF (pronounced however you want, I won’t fight you on it). Are you making a flipbook? Make a flipbook! Here’s a simple animation I created:

Boost Your Typing Speed

Do you still hunt and peck with two fingers? Do you stare at the keyboard? There’s no shame in it! It’s not too late for you to learn--just bust out that growth mindset!

Typing.com is a wonderful resource for you and your students to practice your typing skills. You can create a free account to show you where your fingers go and sequentially introduce new keys as your skills improve. Plus it’s full of fun typing games you and your students will love. If you really want to make it fun, consider creating a Typing Speed Leaderboard with your school’s staff. Students get a big kick out of being able to type faster than their teachers! You can all take the same typing test to see how you stack up.

That’s all for this week! The next communication lesson will be on brevity. But not today.