Gmail tips and custom search engines

Many of us have a Gmail account, but if you are like me, you may not be using it to its full potential! Here are some useful tips I have learned to enhance your Gmail experience. Also, you will find a useful trick to help your students with their research by creating your own custom search engine.

Undo

If you are like me, you may have had a time or two where you forgot to add an attachment or you realized you wanted to reword something. Enter the Undo feature in Gmail to save the day! When activated, a small window pops up after an email has been sent. You simply click on the word "undo," and like magic your email comes back!

You can adjust the length of time you have to Undo an email. Simply go to Gmail settings under the general tab, and click the drop-down menu to select a different time.

Assign Labels

This feature allows you to easily sort your email and keep your inbox clean! If you are like me, you simply cannot immediately respond to all emails. Plus, there are many that you might want keep for later reference.

Simply go to the left side of the screen and scroll below the inbox. Click on the arrow for more, then scroll to the bottom to create a new label. 

After you have created a new label you can even assign it a specific color. 

Check out more on creating labels with this tutorial.

Create a custom search engine

Have you ever had your students doing a research project, and just wished you could filter out some of their results? Even using kid-friendly search engines doesn't eliminate unwanted results. Next time, try to create your own search engine that goes specifically to sites you choose.

Check out how to do it with this tutorial:

Here is my new search engine to help second graders research animals for our big animal research project. Type in an animal below and check it out for yourself!