#441 – Google Document Tabs

#441 — Google Document Tabs

AVID Open Access
11 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Paul Beckermann 0:00 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I’m your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today’s episode is Google document tabs. Let’s face it, we have more information at our fingertips every day than most people used to have access to in a lifetime. While this can be extremely empowering, it can also be overwhelming.

To take advantage of the unprecedented access that we have to information, we really need to find some ways to keep it organized and accessible. That’s where today’s topic comes into play: Google document tabs.

Here’s the, here’s the, here’s the tool for today. What are Google document tabs? Google document tabs is a feature that allows you to break a longer Google document down into smaller sections. In a sense, it’s like creating a filter or a menu or a table of contents within a document. When you click on a section, you see only that section. When you click on the next section, you see only that section. Another way to think about it is to compare it to how a website works.

When you click on a menu item on a website, you’re taken to a specific page; you see only that page. Google document tabs behave much like a website experience: when you click a tab, you’re taken to that tab and see only the content within that tab, not all the other content contained in the document.

So why would somebody want to use tabs? Well, in simple terms, it makes it much easier to manage and navigate through long documents by breaking it down into more digestible sections. You can open the tab overview on the left of your Google document and then quickly see the different tabs or sections of that document.

Click on a tab, and you’ll be jumped directly to that section without needing to scroll through all the pages to try to find the specific section within that longer document that you’re looking for. This means you’ll save time navigating and searching, and you can work with a more manageable amount of content at one time.

The longer the document, the more beneficial tabs can be.

So how does it work? Well, the process is pretty simple and straightforward. When you open a Google Doc, you’ll see a menu on the left side of the page called “Document tabs.” Tab one appears below that and is automatically created.

Next to each document tab is a plus symbol. Click the plus to add additional tabs to your document. To rename a tab, simply double-click it and then type in the new name. You can even drag and drop tabs to rearrange their order.

For more tab options, click the vertical ellipsis icon that appears when you hover over a tab. The first option allows you to add a sub tab. This would be another tab nested underneath the main tab that you’re on. You’ll see other options to delete a tab, duplicate a tab, or rename it. Duplicating can be really helpful if you’ve created a complex structure of information in one section that you want to use in other sections.

Let’s say you have an agenda template and you want that duplicated to each section or each tab. You can do that with duplicate. You could copy and paste, but the duplicate will do it for you with a single click.

Another option in the submenu is to add an emoji symbol to your tab. This can be a really nice visual way to categorize or call out tabs, or even collections of tabs. If you have a section for brainstorming, for instance, maybe you add a light bulb emoji. If there’s a section where you’re drafting communication, maybe you add a pencil or a page icon. You can mark these in any way that makes sense to you.

Below the “Choose emoji” menu item, you’ll find a “copy link” option. Click this to get a direct link to that specific tab in your document. Below that is an option to “show outline.” This display combines tabs with the outline feature that has been in Google Docs for a while.

To use the outline feature, you need to label your sections in your document with a style choice like normal text, title, subtitle, or one of the heading options. When you apply one of the heading options to the text in your document, an outline of that work will appear on the left navigation panel, below an open tab. This gives you an even more detailed overview of your content, making it even easier to find what you’re looking for.

So really, you have two ways to organize your content. You can outline your content using a text style that includes headings, and you can break your longer document down into distinct sections using the tabs feature. Both are great for improving organization and making long documents more manageable. It’s especially powerful when you use the two features together.

So how might somebody use the Google Documents tab feature? How do I use the integration, inspiration, integration ideas?

Well, here are eight items for teachers and eight for students to consider. Let’s begin with the teachers.

1. Lesson planning: Keep separate tabs for daily, weekly, or unit plans.
2. Curriculum resources: Store standards, pacing guides, and frameworks in tabs for quick reference.
3. Collaboration: Use tabs for shared planning documents with grade level or subject area teams. Each tab could be a different lesson, unit, class, or even subject area.
4. Parent communication: Use it to draft letters, newsletters, or scripts on dedicated tabs.
5. Agendas: Keep PLC or team meeting agendas and notes organized in tabs by topic. Rather than one long document of agendas that you have to scroll through, create a tab for each meeting date to keep the content more focused and make it easier to find.
6. Instructional materials: Create dedicated tabs for bell work, another for sub notes, and perhaps a third for exit tickets.
7. Documentation: Maintain a tab for data tracking. Maybe you have tabs for interventions, behavior notes, and IEP goals.
8. PD and reflection: Create a new tab for each professional learning experience that you attend.

All right, let’s move on to students. Here are eight ideas for student use.

1. Writing projects: Students can create separate tabs for each step of the writing process: brainstorming, drafting, revising, and final copies. This makes it great for students and also for the teacher to review the student work.
2. Research projects: Have students create one tab for notes, another for sources, another for the actual paper, or another great option would be to create a document specifically for the research phase of the project. Then students could create a tab for each source that they’re researching, or perhaps a tab for each section of the paper that they’re going to write. In this way, students can keep their notes and ideas more organized and aligned to the outline that they’re going to use.
3. Collaborative work: This works great for shared documents and group work. Teams can organize distinct aspects of their work into different tabs, or perhaps they can have a tab for each group member, so each member can keep their own ideas in the same document, but in a separate place. It all depends on the need and the task at hand.
4. Homework tracking: Students can create a tab for each day, or maybe each class, to help keep track of the homework that they have in a more organized way.
5. Study guides: This can be used by both students and teachers. Teachers could create a guide to distribute to students and have them make a copy, or students could create their own. Tabs could be created for the different aspects of the assignment, like vocabulary or questions to ask.
6. Project work: Students could create a project management document by making a tab for each step or task that will need to be completed in that project.
7. Creative writing: Students could create tabs for different types of writing that they’ll be doing in class. Maybe there’s a tab for character sketches, another for plot outlines, and a third for journals.
8. Speaking of journaling, tabs could be used to organize journals. There could be a tab for each new entry, or perhaps for a week at a time. This will make it much easier for students to find the section they’re looking for and for teachers to review it at a glance.

And here are a couple bonus tips as well.

Bonus Tip number one: What if you want to print this? If you want to print the entire document without doing so tab by tab, you’ll need to download the document and then print it. So this is a slight complication, but it can be easily managed by downloading the document.

Downloading it will remove all the tabs and consolidate it back into one continuous document. Otherwise, you still can go tab by tab, printing each separately.

Tip number two: What if you want to search the document? It’s now broken up into different sections. Well, fortunately, the Control + F on a PC or Command + F on an Apple device will still work to bring up the Find and Replace menu so you can quickly search your document. In fact, if you click the three vertical ellipsis dots to open the full menu, you can toggle between searching just the current tab or all tabs. It’s very convenient.

In summary, if you’re looking for a way to manage those longer documents and chunk them into distinct sections, consider Google document tabs. They’re versatile and easy to use.

Paul Beckermann 9:55 To learn more about today’s topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. And of course, be sure to join Rena Winston and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we’re joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.