10 essential Google Slides tips every teacher should know

Google for EducationTech TipsEdTech
Written By Shana Ramin
Google Slides Tips for Teachers

Google Slides is an incredibly versatile tool for teachers and students. Here are 10 of my favorite tips for making the most of your Google Slides experience.

If you want to watch all 10 tips play in under 4 minutes, play the video below. If you’d rather view the tips individually, keep scrolling through this post.

1) Crop an image into a shape

Take any image and crop it into a circle, star, heart, etc.

👉 How to: Insert an image, then click the little dropdown next to the crop icon to change its shape.

2) Set an automatic start/stop time for videos

When you embed a video on a Google Slide, you can set it to automatically start or stop at a specific time. This is helpful if you want to play a specific part of a video, or if you want to crop a video into several small chunks for discussion purposes.

👉 How to: Upload a video, then right-click to bring up the Format Options. Then, set the start and stop time under Video Playback.

3) Add a countdown timer

Countdown timers are a great classroom management tool. YouTube has a variety of timers you can embed on your slides to keep track of time during discussions, activities, transitions, etc. This helps students know exactly how much time they have for a specific task and can help keep your lessons running smoothly. Just make sure you preview the sounds before using them in class because some timers have loud or obnoxious alarms when the time is up.

Pro tip: I’m a big fan of the Rainbow timers. 🌈

👉 How to: Click Insert —> Video, then search for a video on YouTube in the timed increment you want.

4) Add a clickable text box

This one is great if you’re making an interactive activity and want to give students a space to type on a particular slide. Instead of adding a regular text box and typing “type here”, try adding a clickable text box instead. This way, students won’t have to delete the “type here” text in order to type — they can just click inside the box and start typing. There is a way to do this in the master slides as well, but that’d be a longer video. :)

👉 How to: Copy the “Click to add text” box from one of the default slides and paste it anywhere you want students to type. Resize and change the font as desired.

5) Add a drop shadow

Drop shadows just tend to make shapes and images look better. It’s one of those tiny tweaks that can make a big difference in the overall aesthetics of your slide.

👉 How to: Right-click on the image and select Format Options.

6) Keyboard shortcut: Bring to front/Move to back

This is one of my most used keyboard shortcuts ever. You can accomplish the same thing by right-clicking and selecting the image order you want, but training your brain to use the keyboard shortcut instead can save you precious time.

👉 How to: Ctrl + Shift + Up or Down Arrow on a PC or Chromebook. Command + Shift + Up or Down Arrow on a Mac.

7) Find more Google fonts

The fonts you see in your font dropdown are only a fraction of the fonts Google has available. Find more in the Google Font Library. Filter by type, popularity, date added, etc.

👉 How to: Click the font dropdown and select “More Fonts.”

Psst - I wrote about some of my favorite Google font pairings here: The Best Google Font Pairings + More Design Tips for Teachers

8) Add animated snow

This is a fun way to add a little flair to your slides during the winter. You could also do this with any other transparent GIF/animation.

👉 How to: Do a Google search for “snow GIF transparent”, then save the GIF to your device and upload it as an image.

@helloteacherlady Add animated snow in Google Slides! (Totally team GIF with a hard G, by the way) #LearnOnTikTok #TikTokPartner #teachertechtip ♬ Pieces (Solo Piano Version) - Danilo Stankovic

9) Change slide dimensions

By default, Google Slides are sized 16 x 9, but you can change these dimensions to anything you want. This is helpful if you want to create a printable handout or worksheet in Google Slides, rather than something you’d project on a screen.

👉 How to: Click File —> Page Setup.

10) Keyboard shortcut: Duplicate

This is another one of those helpful time savers. Sure, you could copy and paste an object or slide to accomplish the same thing — but that’s four clicks instead of two. Over time, those extra clicks can really add up!

👉 How to: Ctrl + D on a PC or Chromebook. Command + D on a Mac.

Learn anything? Let me know! If I missed your favorite Google Slides trick, feel free to let me know that too. 😉

 
 
Shana Ramin
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