Remember when I used to blog every Tuesday and share a favorite tech tool? Well, I'm back! Or at least, I am back today with a tech tool I am l-o-v-i-n-g! Plus, here's a sneak peak of my new home office. We call my office space the Jen Den. It's a mix of color (to inspire me) and natural tones (to calm me down).
Today's tech sensation is a Chrome extension which means you have to use the Chrome browser to enjoy it. If you are new to extensions, Chrome extensions are like mini-apps built into Chrome. I appreciate all the extensions I've downloaded so far via Chrome (eg: Text Blaze, Pinterest, and Rakuten - to name a few).
Today's tool, Text Blaze, is a Chrome extension tool that you can use to quickly insert a snippet of text when you are using any web-based program (like email, Facebook, grading within an online course, etc.). It's for those times where you find yourself repeating your typing over and over again and you want a snippet of pre-written text to insert instead.
Teachers, you will love this tool for giving feedback to students. Everyone else, you will appreciate this tool, too. Here's how I use it....
I have a lot of people contact me at work about my college's coach training program. I now have a snippet I use to answer them back. I simply type /cto (which for me stands for "Coach Training Offerings" and with just those four keystrokes the following snippet/message appears in the email I am composing:
Thank you for reaching out. Right now, our spring 2021 coaching courses are full; they filled up in under a week. We do plan to begin our coaching course series again this summer 2021 and fall 2021. If you mark your calendar and email me (say in mid-March), I can share the upcoming dates/times with you.
If you have more questions, please let me know.
Best,
Jen
See how easy that is! Four keystrokes and I get that entire snippet of text above. Since I write this standard email reply many times a week, Text Blaze is saving me time and brain power.
Here's another example. With coaching clients, I often follow-up by email after a coaching session. Here's the snippet I use for that. I simply type /csfu (which for me stands for Coaching Session Follow-up) and the following snippet appears:
Hello - As promised, I wanted to follow-up with you after our coaching session. Based on our session....
What updates can you share?
What are you noticing?
What are you learning?
Curious,
Jen
See how easy that is! Four keystrokes and my message is composed!
Go check out Text Blaze and see what you think. A lovely colleague shared this tool with me. The free version gives you up to 20 snippets that you can change as you need them.
Happy Tech Tuesday!
With love from the Jen Den,
Jen
