With the reception of our last Chromebook tech tips, we just had to do another one! The digital learning field is, as always, a dynamic field of possibilities, and we aim to make some of these tools more understandable. This post for today will cover things like browser management, email tips, and display adjustments. While small, these tips can really improve the experience for people learning with computers. With this in mind, we hope you enjoy some of these new tips for what will likely be our last post for the spring 2021 semester! It has been great seeing all of the supportive advice from all the people that wanted to see this blog grow and improve. 

 

Reopening Closed Tabs

Has this ever happened to you? You close a tab on your web browser and then realize that you still need it. No need to panic. Here is what you can do to retrieve your tab:

 

• Press Ctrl + Shift + t

 

That’s it! The most recently closed tab will reopen. If you press those buttons again, the previous tab you closed will also open.

 

PRO TIP: Are you using a Google Chrome web browser on your Mac? You can easily reopen a closed tab by pressing Command + Shift + t. 

 

Schedule Send an Email in Gmail

There are many times when we are emailing people but don’t want the email to be sent right away. In Google (Gmail), you can schedule send an email to be delivered to the recipients at any time in the future. Here’s how you do it:

 

1. Compose your email and address it to whomever you intend to send it to.
2. Before sending, press the little down arrow on the right side of the Send button on the screen.
3. Select Schedule Send.
4. A few suggested send times will be listed in the box that pops up on the screen. You can select one of those times or click where it says Pick Date & Time.
5. If you choose to select your own date & time, a new box will pop up with a calendar. You just select the date and type in a time for that date, then click Schedule Send. Easy Peasy!

 

Adjusting Screen Display Size

There are many times in my position as a technology support person where a student has accidentally changed their screen size during class and they can’t figure out how to get it back to normal. Typically, there is one quick fix, but I am going to walk you through two different ways to attempt to change the display size back to normal.

 

#1 – Web pages or Google Docs seem to be zoomed in or out.

1. Press Ctrl and + or – to zoom in or out in the web browser.

 

#2 – The entire screen display seems to be zoomed in or zoomed out. This includes your menu bar and any windows that you open on the Chromebook. 

1. Click the bottom right corner of your Chromebook screen where the time is displayed.
2. In the black box that pops up, click the Settings icon (looks like a gear).
3. When the Settings window opens, type Display in the search bar. Select Display as it pops up in the search options when typing.
4. In the Built-in Display settings, there will be an option to change the size of your screen display. Just adjust until the screen is at your desired size.

 

Search Engine Issues 

When you open Google Chrome, is Google your homepage? Did Google used to be your homepage, but for some reason it randomly changed to Bing or Yahoo? How do you change it back to Google?

 

1. Click the bottom right corner of your Chromebook screen where the time is displayed.
2. In the black box that pops up, click the Settings icon (looks like a gear).
3. On the left side of the window that opens, click on Personalization.
4. Under Search Engine settings, your Preferred Search Engine is displayed. 
5. If your preferred search engine is not Google and you want to change it back, click Configure. A small box will pop up with a drop-down menu.
6. Click the drop down menu and select your preferred search engine.

 

Hopefully you have been able to find something useful this semester from our blog. Tech tips was formed as a way to share technology tips and tricks, as well as support educators who may be struggling in this time of increased technology use in the classroom. Thank you to everyone who has contributed or given feedback! Until next time…

The use of technology in Special Education classrooms helps break the barriers for people with disabilities and provide them with access to the most relevant educational programs. Properly designed software and hardware allow students with special needs to get modern education and achieve any required information online. 

There are many tools that are used, these include speech recognition, screen-reading tools, online name picker, braille displays and text-to-speech solutions for the visually impaired and sound amplifiers, closed-captioning applications and video conferencing technologies that facilitate sign language and lip-reading for the hearing-impaired. Below you will find some tips & ideas that you may find useful to use in your Special Education (or even general education!) classroom.

 

Text-to-speech & Dictation on Chromebooks

If you are part of a Google School, your students may have regular access to Chromebooks. Students with special needs can successfully use Chromebooks to help them read along in class. The Text-to-speech and Dictation accessibility options allow words to be processed with ease.

Text-to-speech enables students to highlight a passage on their screen and the device will read the words out loud. This helps students who may not be able to read at the same level as other students in their class to read along as the words are read to them by their device. 

To enable Text-to-speech:

• Click on the lower right corner of your screen where the time is displayed
• Select the toggle icon (settings)
• In the Search bar, type accessibility
• Select Text-to-speech
• Move the button for that option to the On position

 

Dictation is a feature that allows students to record themselves talking, and then their words will be automatically transcribed into text on their screen. This would be great for students who struggle with typing, but are very creative storytellers. 

To enable Dictation:

• Follow the same steps as earlier to get into the accessibility settings
• Select Dictation
• Move the button for that option to the On position

 

Wheel of Names – Virtual name picker

Need help making choices? Try this virtual name picker! https://wheelofnames.com/

This site is great if you need to choose which student has a task next, or even have students “spin the wheel” to receive class tasks to complete. This tool can be utilized in many different ways, but it will be a hit in your Special Education classroom for sure!

Online timer/stopwatch

Google has so many great features, but one that can prove useful in your classroom is an online timer. When on Google’s homepage, just type “online timer” into the search bar, press Enter, and an online timer will appear on the results page. Along with the timer, there will also be a list of additional sites you can explore that have online timers with different options. Look around and see which one best suits your class’s needs.

 

Social Situation Online Graphic Novels 

Many students that receive Special Education services need help with basic social skills. Many teachers are always looking for new ways to help students learn these skills. This website:

(www.socialthinking.com) is a fantastic site! There are graphic novels and fun stories that students in most grade levels will enjoy. You will have to register to use this site, and not everything is free, but depending on how many things you want to use from this site, it could be a great tool for you!

 

There is a need for engagement in every classroom, and many classrooms have a hard time obtaining that even when they’re entirely offline. With these tools at the disposal of everyone, there can be an increased sense of outreach on the part of the educators to make sure that everyone’s needs are met. Special needs in classroom environments are a normal part of life, and to compensate for these aspects of learning, educators can go above and beyond to explain these things to their students directly and increase their own knowledge on the tools that students might not even know about. Educators and students alike can greatly find themselves at an advantage once they know these tools are available.

Every post from us here at Tech Tips is geared toward making technology more user-friendly for everyone. When you hear the word technology, what happens? Do you shut down? Do you feel afraid? Do you think of video games? Technology can be both good and bad, but it is definitely here to stay. We want you to feel excited when you think about using technology!

 

We have mentioned the pandemic a few times in our recent posts – it has changed a lot of things! But mostly, it has changed the way teachers have needed to teach their students. Technology is being used more than ever before, and we want teachers to embrace technology. 

 

BE A TECHNOLOGY SUPERHERO!

As a teacher in these troubling times, you have the power to be a technology superhero! Instead of shying away from trying new resources, take the leap! “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” It can definitely be scary to try new things, but how can you expect to improve yourself and become the best teacher possible if you don’t constantly try to learn new things? 

 

Here are some ways you can be a Technology Superhero!

• Watch YouTube tutorials if you are unsure of how to use a new technology resource
• Talk to your district’s Technology Integration Specialist to see if there are any new things you can try in your classroom using technology
• Find class projects or assignments that can be altered to have students engaged in using technology
• Ask other teachers in your district how they use technology for teaching.

 

YOUTUBE TUTORIALS

There are so many excellent resources out there, and YouTube is no exception. Anytime I am not quite sure about how to do something, I just look up tutorials on YouTube. 

 

Not sure how to do a 1950’s hairstyle for a play you’re in? 

YouTube! 

 

Need to check how to fix a specific part on your car?

  YouTube!

The same goes for technology! If you want to learn how to use a specific piece of technology in your classroom, YouTube is an excellent source.

 

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

So many schools are now employing Technology Integration Specialists. Their job includes supporting you in your classrooms with new ways to implement technology into your curriculum. If you aren’t sure how to start, talk to your school or district’s Technology Integration Specialist. I’m sure they have great ideas!

 

PRO TIP: Visit https://www.notanotheremailpd.com/ to see what one District Technology Integration Specialist suggests for classrooms! 

 

ALTER ASSIGNMENTS TO INCLUDE TECHNOLOGY

What sorts of assignments do you give your class? Is there a way to get them to use technology for their assignments? If your students are assigned something like a book report, maybe instead, have them create a comic strip or movie poster in Canva. Do your first grade students need to practice math facts during their free time? Try ABCMouse! If you get creative, you can find many ways to implement technology into everyday assignments. 

 

ASK AROUND

Search for other technology superheroes! One of the greatest resources available are the other teachers in your own building! Check out their classrooms and see what they’re doing to implement the use of technology in their curriculum! It’s okay to share ideas. They are your colleagues and will most likely love to help you out. 

 

Technology does not need to be as villainous as you might think! Your computer might feel like it’s working against you sometimes with all the potential avenues of system failures, but it is also something that can be conquered. Knowing what sites can help out for which situations is something close to a superpower; like any superpower, it requires training and learning to actually develop it. Asking your friends, searching the web, doing anything you can to expose yourself will be beneficial in the long run. You can and will become a tech superhero if you try!

We’ve all been there since March of 2020, and we know how awkward it is to join that first Zoom meeting. Students, teachers, and professors alike have all grown to predict the meeting rooms of black screens and text-names, yet no webcams. Student engagement for the last year has degraded because of circumstances beyond our control, but can you blame them? They’re throwing themselves into classrooms from their beds, home offices, and living spaces. So since they don’t have the incentive to drive to school, get dressed, and be at their A-game in the classroom, they’ve instead resorted to hiding their faces and removing the personality from the Zoom classroom.

This does not need to be the case, however! There are a bunch of different things that meeting platforms such as Zoom have that can offer variety in the classroom. Examples include custom backgrounds, chat parameters, raise hand functions, and a bunch of other things that can let you express yourself and participate like you were in a normal classroom and encourage students to have their cameras turned on. Hopefully in this guide for today, we can show you some of the things that you can do as a host on Zoom to make it worthy of your time. 

 

CHANGE BACKGROUNDS

First things first – we want to address the elephant in the room: your room. Whenever you join a Zoom meeting for the first time, your bedroom, office, and household are the default background every time. Your entire class can see every detail of your home simply because of your web camera, and that can be an incentive to not turn it on in the first place. What if I were to tell you that you can make anything into your background on zoom? You have the ability to make anything into a green screen meeting, so you don’t need to always show off the room you’re joining class in. This is how to go about it.

 

1. Open Zoom meeting
2. Then, in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, hit the little arrow next to your camera, then click “Choose Virtual Background” like so:
   
3. Next, you’ll see a screen looking like this:
   

4. Click the plus button in the top right hand corner of your screen. This will allow you to select an image off your computer that you can use for your backdrop while you are in the zoom meeting. As you can see, I downloaded a picture of Mars off Google and made it my background. How did I get here? Zoom Magic.
   

Side note: Zoom might ask you “would you like to download the virtual backgrounds update?” Press Okay! It’s free, awesome, and it’ll turn some heads at your next Zoom meeting. Make sure that you pick something that expresses you!

 

REACTIONS: 

Now what if you are in class but you’re not sure what feels appropriate to emote on? In real life, after all, we can emote to what we find in lectures by smiling, applauding, or even giving a nod in approval. If something clicks with us in a class. How would you be able to do that in an online meeting? Well, it’s not as simple as doing it in real life because the people in the meeting do not always have everyone else’s camera on full display. The resolution is to do the following. Reactions. Truth be told, this is just a miniature tool that some classes have that is highly underutilized, and we thought it would be fun to explain its utility with a brief ‘how to do’ Here are the steps:

1. First, click on the reactions button in the toolbar. (note, some classes might not have this function enabled
2. Next, select the emote that you want to have represent a reaction in class. There are a bunch of options, like a thumbs-up when you wanna say ‘I understand’ or a laughing face when you want people to know that you find something hilarious!
   You might even notice that there is a Raise Hand function! That is something that might come in handy if you want to find a moment to interrupt a conversation without actually interrupting people. Once you click on one of these, however, it will show it activate in the top left hand corner of your screen, like so!          

Not only can this boost engagement in the classroom, but it can also help folks that might be a little shy when it comes to interrupting the class to make a comment. It allows the students or professor to say, ‘yeah, this attendee is listening!’ without actually seeing them directly emote or say anything. 

Also: If you use a Chromebook to host a Zoom meeting, these features may not be available.

 

CHAT TIPS

Have you ever noticed the chat feature in Zoom? This is a great way to interact with others in the meeting! If you want to chat and have everyone in the meeting see your message, make sure the chat is set to “everyone”. 

As the host of a Zoom meeting, you have the ability to control whether your meeting participants can privately chat with each other or only post in a public fashion. To change the chat permissions when you are hosting a zoom meeting, open the chat, select the three horizontal dots on the lower right corner of the chat box, and select which permissions you would like to implement.

ZOOM SECURITY FEATURES

As the host of a Zoom meeting, you have a myriad of security features available to you. You can select whether or not people need to be in the waiting room before joining the meeting, if you would like them to have the ability to chat during the meeting, or even if they are allowed to unmute their microphones. 

To see these features, click the Security icon on the bottom of your Meeting screen. Select which features you would like to use.

If you’re new to Zoom, these features will be very useful as a meeting host. So the next time you have to host a Zoom meeting, never fear! You’ve got this!

Many teachers struggle to find new ideas for creating a positive classroom culture. They want to have an inclusive classroom that promotes diversity and respect between themselves and their students, but cannot seem to think of concrete ideas to implement this. It can be very difficult to show personality in a classroom (both online or in person) when you narrow a classroom down to curriculum, but there are many ways that educators can make class more fun with visuals or online resources. 

 

Today we would like to show you one way to help boost your classroom culture by creating a Bitmoji ™ Classroom. First of all, what the heck is a Bitmoji™? Bitmoji™ is an app that you can download onto your smartphone and create fun cartoon (avatar) versions of yourself. 

Take a look at our tech team avatars:

Want to learn more? Keep reading!

 

1. If you haven’t done so already, download the Bitmoji™ app onto your smartphone or other smart device.
2. Create your unique avatar.
3. Start exploring the app to see the fun ways your avatar can be used.

 

Now that you have created your own avatar, here is a little more in depth explanation:

Bitmoji ™ classrooms are cartoon scenes that you can create using your Bitmoji™ avatar and pictures you find online. These classroom scenes can be used in a variety of ways, including:

• Morning announcements 
• Classroom Celebrations & Achievements
• Adding character to your Slide presentations

 

Here’s a visual for you:

As you can see from the above example, there are many fun things you can do to create a Bitmoji™ classroom scene. So let’s get started! 

 

1. The first thing we like to do when creating these scenes is to open a new Google Slides document (last week’s blog post covers how to do this). There are many ways to make your classroom scenes, but this is our preferred way because it is easy and you may already be using Google Slides anyway.
2. Next, open a new tab on your web browser. Make sure you are using Google Chrome as your main web browser. Also, make sure you are on Google’s main page.
3. In the search bar, type Bitmoji™ Chrome Extension.
4. Follow the instructions to install the extension on your device.
5. Once installed, you will be prompted to sign in using either your email or Snapchat handle…basically, sign in using whatever information you used when downloading the app onto your smart device earlier.
6. Once you are signed in, you should see the following icon appear in the upper right corner of your web browser:
7. Next, click on that icon and a drop down menu will appear. You will see many fun options to have your avatar do different things. 

 

Now that you have enabled the Bitmoji™ extension, you need to create your classroom scene. This is the fun part!

1. Open a new tab again and go to Google’s homepage. Search for Free Bitmoji™ Classroom Background Templates. 
2. Filter your results by clicking on the word Images, that way you can see the pictures of the templates. 
3. There will be many options, and not all of them will be free. There are some awesome sites dedicated to designing Bitmoji™ classroom backgrounds, and you are welcome to use them for a small fee if you are willing. However, for the purposes of this blog post, we will use a free template. Right click on one of the images you see in your search results.
4. Select Save Image As… and then follow the prompts to save the image to your computer.
5. Remember the Google Slideshow we opened earlier? Now is the time to go back to that. 
6. We recommend setting your main scene picture as the background of your slide. Do this by clicking on Background in the menu bar, Choose Image, then Upload.
7. Once uploaded, your scene will be set as the background! 

 

Now you can add your Bitmoji™ avatar to the scene or find other fun pictures or furniture to add to your scene based on how you want the scene to look. 

 

Reminder: to find your Bitmoji™ avatar, click on the icon in the upper right corner of your screen. You will need to right click and copy the image that you want to put on your Classroom scene.

That’s it! Be creative and have fun with it! Your students will love to see these Bitmoji™ scenes in your classroom!

Google Slides is a favorite teaching tool for many educators, both in person and online. With a huge selection of free features and options, this powerhouse allows teachers to create dynamic, interactive presentations that really engage their students. Whether you’re new to Google Slides or looking to up your game, these resources will help you make the most of it.

Today’s blog post is for anyone who needs some assistance with the technology side of Google Slides, specifically teachers looking to utilize this tool. We will show you some helpful information, like how to add sound to your slides or even how to make them interactive for students.

GOOGLE SLIDES BASICS

Google Slides is similar to the well-known Microsoft program, PowerPoint. The neat thing about Google Slides is that it’s very user-friendly and has many simple features that make it a cinch to create slides for your classroom. So let’s dive in! Here is how to create a new Slideshow:

 

Step 1: Navigate to www.slides.google.com. 

Step 2: In the upper left corner of the screen, select Blank. This will open a new Slideshow.

Step 3: Name your Slideshow by clicking in the upper left corner of the screen where it says “Untitled Presentation” and type what you would like the name of your slideshow to be.

Step 4: Explore! There are many features on Google Slides, and the best way to learn the basics is to explore. 

 

RESIZING YOUR SLIDES

Google Slides offers a highly intuitive interface that makes creating an impressive presentation simple. One example of this is that, when you open a new presentation, Google Slides opens a 16:9 widescreen deck template that fits most laptop screens, tablets, and projectors. But what if you want a different look? What if you wanted to create, for example, an Instagram template?  How can you change slide sizes in Google Slides?

 

HOW TO: Change the size of your slides

Step 1: Open google slides

Step 2: Click on “file” at the top of your screen

Step 3: Click on “page setup”

Step 4: Choose a preset dimension or choose custom

Step 5: If you choose custom, another box will pop up, you then enter your desired dimensions and unit of measurement. 

 

ADDING SOUND TO YOUR SLIDES

Here’s a cool feature! Google recently added the ability to include sound files in a Google Slideshow, and this is so exciting! This will make learning so much more fun for students when they can pick up on audio cues and listen to real time sound effects in the slides. There are 2 different types of audio you may want to insert into your slides: narration or music. 

 

HOW TO: Insert Narration

Step 1: Open Online Voice Recorder

Step 2: Record your narration

Step 3: Open google slides

Step 4: Choose the slide you want to insert the narration on

Step 5: Click on “Insert” at the top of your screen

Step 6: Scroll down and select “audio”

Step 7: Select the recording of your narration

Step 8: Click the “Select” button

 

You now have a narration!! It’s that easy

 

HOW TO: Insert Music

Step 1: Open Free Music

Step 2: Select a genre of music

Step 3: Choose a song and download it by pressing the arrow on the right

Step 4: Open google drive

Step 5: Drag and drop your downloaded song into your google drive

Step 6: Open google slides

Step 7: Click on “Insert” at the top of your screen

Step 8: Scroll down and select “audio”

Step 7: Select the downloaded music

Step 8: Click the “Select” button

 

 

 

GOOD TO KNOW

When you have added your sound to your slide show, you will most likely want to share your presentation with others. To do that, you go to the Share button in the upper right corner of Google Slides and get a shareable link. Share the link as you normally would. Here is the big trick with adding sound to a Google Slideshow: The sound file link must also be shared. This is kind of a big deal. If the sound file is not shared, there will be no sound. 

 

HOW TO: Share the sound file

Step 1: Open Google Drive

Step 2: Select the sound you have inserted into your slides

Step 3: Click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner

Step 4: Click “Share”

Step 5: Where it says “get link” make sure it says that “anyone with the link” can listen

Step 6: Copy that link

Step 7: Click done and share with desired people

INSERT VIDEOS INTO YOUR SLIDES

The nice thing about embedding a video directly in your Google Slides presentation is that you (or your students) don’t have to worry about clicking over to another window or website. Instead, you can simply set the video to play automatically (or once the Play button is clicked). You can use YouTube videos, videos from other sites, or those you’ve created yourself.

 

HOW TO: Insert video from Google Drive into slideshow

Step 1: Open Google Slides

Step 2: Click “Insert” at the top of your screen

Step 3: Click on “Video”

Step 4: Click on Google Drive and select the video you want to embed

Step 5: Click “Select”

 

And you’re done!!

 

Step 1: Open the slide in which the video is on

Step 2: Right click on the video

Step 3: Click on “Video Options”

Step 4: Choose a start time and end time on the sidebar that pops up

What else would you like to learn about Google Slides? There are many features and we love talking about them!

One of the main problems in today’s online classrooms is the factor of student participation when it comes to online assignments, homework, or just class in general. Especially during quarantine, the amount of importance that online classing has in our modern curriculum has increased significantly. There arises a problem with this idea, however. 

When teaching a student over a keyboard and screen, a student is at home where they have a lot of control over their own behavior and initiative to participate in classwork. On most homework websites that teachers utilize, however, there are many loopholes that students can utilize to dodge the bulk of most classwork. 

If a teacher or professor posts an online lecture as a video, for example, the student can scroll to the very end of the video to mark that they have finished the assignment, or they can even mute the lecture and exit to another tab to do other online things. 

A lot of the time, this is on the part of the student’s sense of distraction, and they might not even be doing it intentionally. The question still stands though: What can be done to make a student less distracted and how can you force them to participate in assignments when they are at home and in control?

Many options come down to professors using archaic classroom measures that don’t necessarily work in a transition to online classrooms. For example, lecturing a student to pay attention in a zoom class not only alienates the student but it also interrupts the entire class for a longer duration than it might during a normal in-person setting. 

Especially since online classing is stressful enough with all the technical difficulties, it might be better to pursue another option for online classing. It just so happens that, since this is a rising dilemma, many online companies have been trying to create a platform that addresses these topics. One such service goes by the name EdPuzzle, and for today’s blog post, we will talk about the benefits of using it as a service in the field of online education. 

EdPuzzle is an easy-to-use platform where you can make any video your lesson. With just one click, you can find video lessons created by other teachers, including formative assessments! Another click and you can adapt that video by embedding your own questions or audio. With the final click, assign it to your students and get beautiful hassle-free analytics: see who watched the video, who didn’t understand the lesson and who did a good job. Students can re-watch the video as many times as they need at their own pace, while you can easily check their progress from your account. 

With EdPuzzle, you can make any video your lesson in three easy steps:

1. Find a video on YouTube, upload your own or re-use a video lesson created by another teacher.
2. Then, edit the video to create your lesson. Record your voice to personalize it, and hold your students accountable by embedding questions in the video.
3. Assign the video to your students and check their progress in real time while they learn at their own pace.

Below is a great tutorial we found on YouTube by Richard Byrne:

These features and more will help create a cohesive virtual classroom environment and give your students a chance to be engaged and held accountable for their work. While there are admittedly many options available to support your online classes, we feel that this resource is worth your exploration.

 

While not necessarily a remote learning issue, teachers sometimes need help with the technology side of things when it comes to teaching. Computers are becoming an everyday part of the classroom as of late, and that comes with a slew of different problems. In most public schools where computers are relevant to the classroom, students may use Chromebooks. 

Chromebooks are unique because they are primarily utilized for web-searching and minor app usage. In today’s blog post, we thought it would be helpful for teachers, students, and just about anyone who uses Chromebooks to get some quick fixes for some mild, common issues that may arise when using these devices.

 

FROZEN SCREENS

The first common issue that we decided to discuss was a common phenomenon of ‘screen locking’ or ‘screen freezing’. We’ve all been there: working on a classroom assignment or project when suddenly the screen locks in place and you can’t move anything on your screen. Tabs lock in place, you can’t interact with anything on the monitor, and all you have access to is the physical buttons on the Chromebook. 

While it can be initially confusing, there is a quick fix for this common problem:

Step 1: Press the Power & Refresh button (the one that looks like a circular arrow)

Step 2: Wait for your Chromebook to reboot.

Step 3: Log in to your Chromebook

Optional Step 4: When reopening Google Chrome, you may select the option to Restore Tabs. This is a very helpful option if your device froze during a lesson or if you had specific tabs open for important reasons.

CHROMEVOX

Another problem similar to Screen freezing is Chromevox, but Chromevox is a built-in screen reader that can open when students, say, press a specific series of  keys on their keyboards (accidentally) and cause it to open. 

This tool can be very useful for those who need to navigate their chromebooks with verbal instruction from the device. The confusion here is that a lot of people don’t really know how to discontinue this option once it is activated. 

To identify if Chromevox is active or not, you will most likely hear a voice speaking on your device and your screen may look something like this: 

As you can see in the picture, there is an orange box around the search bar on the Google Homepage. This means that whatever is typed in that box will be read aloud by the computer.

Here is the magic solution:

Press Ctrl+Alt+Z

That’s it! Easy peasy!

 

AUDIO ISSUES

Sometimes there can be some problems when using programs like Zoom, Google Meets, etc. and it can be troublesome getting audio to work. It may be that the audio isn’t playing at all on the programs, or it could be that the computer is not picking up your sound from the Chromebook’s microphone. That being said, here are a series of troubleshoots you can try to work on your Chromebook’s audio. 

If you are in a Google Meet or Zoom Meeting and are having microphone or speaker issues, you may need to enable your microphone or speakers for the particular source you are using. You can do this by checking your audio settings on your Chromebook. 

First Troubleshooting Tip – Check that your Microphone is enabled

Step 1: Click the three vertical dots in the top right corner of your Chrome window.

Step 2: Select Settings.

Step 3: In the search bar at the top of the screen, type Site Settings and press Enter.

Step 4: Once you are in the Site Settings, scroll down and select Microphone.

Step 5: When you are in the Microphone settings, you can see which sites are allowed and which sites are blocked. Make sure the site you are trying to use is allowed.

 

Second Troubleshooting Tip – Check Audio Input & Output settings

Step 1: Click the bottom right corner of your screen where the time is displayed.

Step 2: A black box will pop up. Locate the Audio icon near the bottom of the black box. Make sure the audio level is set to a high level.

Step 3: If it is set to an acceptable level and you still can’t hear anything, Click the bullet arrow to the right of the Audio slider. This will take you to the Input and Output options.

Step 4: Make sure those levels are acceptable. (Quick Tip! If your Chromebook is connected to an external monitor, make sure the audio is selected to go through your Chromebook, and not the monitor. This will help you hear things as well.)

 

If neither of these tips solves your audio issue, you can test the audio on your computer by opening the camera app on your device and recording a short video. If there is no audio in the video playback, you may have a hardware issue with your microphone and it may need to be looked at by a Technician. 

 

SCREENSHOTS
Finally, if this blog does not help with a particular issue that you might have with your Chromebook, you can utilize the screenshot function when trying to ask a tech assistant on additional aid. Attaching a screenshot of the problem to an email you send can greatly affect the effectiveness of any tech assistants that will work on fixing your issue.

There are two ways to take a screenshot on a Chromebook:

 

Take a general screenshot of the entire screen.

Step 1: Press Ctrl + screenshot key

Take a screenshot of a specific area of your screen.

Step 1: Press Ctrl + Shift + screenshot key

Are you having other challenges with your Chromebook? Reach out to us! We may be able to assist!

With the globalized pandemic forcing schools to go into a remote class environment, it can be quite difficult for all of us to catch up with the technology. There is a great amount of pressure and stress that gets put on teachers and professors to catch up to this new teaching style.

Many educators believe that technology might just be out of their area of expertise, but there are tools out there that can make school a lot easier for not only them, but their students.

Our goal here at Tech Tips for Teachers is to present some of these technologies in a casual, user friendly way that hopefully helps educators adapt into their remote-learning experiences. Every week, we will try to address a different part of the online classroom and talk about tools that can be used to work around different issues or complications provoked by online schooling.

Some resources we will explore and cover throughout this blog are:

• Benefits to embracing technology in the classroom
• Tech Resources for Special Education Classrooms
• Chromebook troubleshooting & other awesome tips for educators and parents
• Creating a Bitmoji Classroom
• EdPuzzle
• Ideas for parents helping their kids with online school work from home
• Google Slides Tips & Tricks
• And more!

Educators will get the opportunity to learn about new apps, websites, and strategies that they can use to expand past their limited capabilities on school websites. Additionally, we can help inform educators and parents about what students are looking for in an online learning environment so they can learn how to meet those needs accordingly. 

On top of user guides and tutorials, we will have polls and questionnaires answered by real educators to give us an opportunity to address the real issues in the online learning space. 

Get to know us!

We are Laura, Daniel, & Brenna! 

 

• Laura is the district technology assistant for Pine City Public Schools in Minnesota. She also directs theater for North Branch High School and is going to school to get her teaching license with a specialty in Library Media and Technology Integration. 

 

 

 

 

 

• Brenna is the social media specialist for the Rogers Senior High School DECA chapter, as well as the social media specialist for her local Sammy’s Pizza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Daniel is a remote writing coach for the SCSU ‘Write Place’ writing center. He is also a senior in his English Studies Degree and an avid user of computers. He enjoys helping students use online technologies.

 

 

 

 

 

While we may not be educators yet, asking people that are can help us understand their perspective. Once we know this perspective, we can offer additional aid in something we know: tech. 

So come on in! We are excited to share our passion with you!