If you're a teacher wanting to save time and make things easier on yourself... (which is every teacher isn't it??) then trust me, Google Chrome can be your best friend! Here are some tips that I've learned as a middle school teacher!
1. HAVE SEPARATE PROFILES FOR WORK & PERSONAL
I have a different chrome profile for each of my emails— my school email has its own chrome profile so that I can have all my school bookmarks. My personal email has it own chrome profile and so does my MsBolier business email. Having separate chrome profiles allows you to also keep your work separate from your personal browsing history.
2. CUSTOMIZE YOUR HOMEPAGE.
Set up your Chrome homepage(whenever you open a new tab) with shortcuts to frequently visited websites or Google Drive folders This can help you quickly access the resources you need. You can also change the color of your chrome profile to help you differentiate between profiles.
3. BOOKMARK FREQUENTLY USED SITES
Organize your frequently visited websites by creating folders and subfolders in your bookmarks bar. This helps you quickly access websites you use often or want to be able to find again. I bookmark my top used sites such as my email, Google Drive, Skyward (what we use for grades), Canvas (our Learning Management System), and Google Keep (all my to do lists). Then I have the rest organized into folders. Here’s a list of folders that I have in my bookmark bar:
Scope & Sequences - this is where I bookmark each of my class scope and sequence which is what I use to outline and plan for all my classes. I will also bookmark the one for next semester as I start to plan ahead. Get my scope & sequence template HERE in my TPT store!
Classroom Tech - I love to save any website that is tech tool. I save ones I use a lot (see some of my most used websites as a teacher here) but also will save any new tech tool websites I find that I want to remember and come back to again such as ClassroomScreen, MagicSchoolAi, and other AI websites I’ve recently discovered.
Classes - I have a subfolder for each of the classes I teach and in each of those folders I have the state strands and standards bookmarked, as well as any other websites that I use for that class or want to remember to come back to. I also save my IEP Accommodations organizer under my classes folder to refer back to.
Survey Responses - This is where I save any response sheet that I have from a Google Form I give such as my Student Survey, Parent Survey, Infant Simulator Reflection, Escape Room responses from absent students, etc. It makes it easy and quick to check responses.
District - this is where I save all district related sites that I use often such as the website to put in for a sub, the employee portal, and district forms.
School - just like the district folder this is where I save school related sites that I use often and want to be able to find quickly. This includes our various shared Google Sheets we use, our online faculty handbook, assembly bell schedules, etc.
Budgets - As a CTE teacher I am lucky enough to get funding for my classes but it means having a budget to keep track of for my different classes so this is where I save the sheets where I track that.
4. INSTALL HELPFUL CHROME EXTENSIONS
There are so many chrome extensions that can really save you time or make your life easier. I share a bunch of my favorite ones that I love as a teacher here! I plan to do a part 2 soon explaining more soon but in the meantime I’ll just simply list ones I have installed for my teacher work chrome profile right now:
Bitmoji
Canvas Quiz Printer
ColorPick Eyedropper
CustomCursor for Chrome
Dualless
Emoji Keyboard
Kami for Google Chrome
PrinterLogic Extension
PrintFriendly
QR Code Generator
Screencastify
Tango
Text Blaze
URL Shortener
Video Downloader Professional
5. GROUP AND PIN TABS
I love being able to pin tabs that I need open all the time such as my email, Skyward, Canvas, Google Keep, and Drive. I also love being able to group tabs! I hate seeing a million tabs open at once, it makes me overwhelmed. I create a group for each of my classes so that I can keep the scope & sequence, bell ringer slides, and whatever slides I need for that day to teach open and ready to go. But I can close it into the group when I’m not currently using it. See this Instagram post to understand how to group tabs if you don’t already know how! You can change the settings in Chrome to have it continue where you left off when opening the browser so you don’t lose you grouped tabs!
6. USE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
There are some Chrome keyboard shortcuts that can save you time or make it easier to do things. Here’s a list of ones that I find helpful! (on a mac you would use command instead of ctrl for all of these)
Ctrl+d to bookmark current page
Ctrl+T to open a new tab
Ctrl+W to close a tab
Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen a closed tab
Ctrl+Shift+B to show or hide bookmarks bar
Ctrl+Shift+J to see all downloads in a new tab
If you found this helpful, pin the image below to Pinterest or send to a friend!
