Earlier this week Google added a new emoji option into Google Docs. The new option enables you to type @ followed by an emotion to add an emoji into a sentence in your Google Documents. For example, you can type “@smile” to generate a list of smiley emojis that you can pick from to insert into the sentence you’re writing. Of course, you can also do this by simply opening the insert menu in Google Docs and then selecting the emoji option. 

In this short video I demonstrate how to add emojis into your sentences in Google Docs. 

Applications for Education

When I first saw Google’s announcement about adding emojis into Google Docs I didn’t think much of it. In fact, I thought it was kind of silly or pointless. Then I thought some more about it and realized that writing with emojis could be a fun way to create some creative writing prompts for students. You could even combine emojis with dropdown menus in Google Docs to create some little Mad Libs-like creative writing activities.

Here’s a short video about how add dropdown menus into Google Docs.