As we have transitioned to digital teaching, many activities are being completed digitally by students. On Google Slides, it’s really annoying when text boxes are accidentally deleted, moved, or resized. Even with the Undo button, this can still get frustrating for the students.
The Solution
Here’s what you need to do. Ditch the text boxes.
Instead of using text boxes, insert a TABLE.
You may be thinking, “What the heck? A table?” but YES! A table is normally used for creating grids or graphs, but it can be a great alternative to a text box, because it’s much harder to delete or move.
In fact, to move or delete a text box, all you need to do is click on it first, which students are doing in order to type. Right? But to move or delete a table, you have to actually click on the outer edge to grab it. That’s much harder for a student to do unintentionally as they begin typing their response.
To insert a table, click on INSERT up at the top of your toolbar. Then scroll down to table, and select just ONE of the little squares.
Once it appears on your slide, resize it as needed. I like to fill mine with a white background using the paint bucket tool. You can also give it an outline color and adjust the outline thickness to indicate that it’s a place to start typing. For example, if your students know that the blue outlined rectangles are where you type your responses, you no longer need to write “Click here to type” everytime.
Try it out and see what I mean! It’s a game-changer! Here’s a video showing the difference between a text box and a table and how to insert a table.
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