Today I learned about a couple of tips when you want to split your computer screen and do work side by side. I have been using the Chrome extensions Tab Scissors and Tab Glue to split my screen and then put it back together, and while those extensions work fine in most cases I was exploring other options.
I came across this post by The Techie Teacher and found some valuable information. I especially like the Toggle Slide Panel bookmarklet tool. She credited James Malcolm for it and you can read more about it here.
Why would you want to hide the slide panel in Google Slides? Well, as you probably know, when working in split screen, you can not present slides, because the second you click on the Present button the split screen stops and your whole computer screen is taken over by the slide.
In order for the slides to be given more real estate on the split screen. First, click on Toggle Slide Panel bookmarklet (which eliminates the thumbnails of the slides), then split your screen. See the difference in the two screenshots below.
And here is a screenshot after using the Toggle Slide Panel Bookmarklet.
You can definitely see how nice it is with the slide panel gone. Best of all you can still advance the slides by clicking on the side of the screen that contains your slide deck and using the left and right arrows on your keyboard.
Some things to keep in mind before you start doing this neat little trick.
- The Toggle Slide Panel bookmarklet doesn’t show in split screen mode, so use it to remove the slide panel before you split the screen.
- When in full-screen mode you can just click the bookmarklet to bring back the slide thumbnails.
- Drag the Split Tabs extension icon closer to your omnibox. When I first installed it, I had so many other extensions enabled that it didn’t show up on my split screen mode. Luckily my Tab Glue icon was showing and it put my split screen back together.
- I soon realized that I had to click on the Split Tabs extension icon and click on the undo button to end the split screen.
I often use split screen and so do my students, so I love being able to do so quickly and easily.
Do you have any other split screen tips? Please add them in the comments.
