Chromebooks Love It When They Get Their Updates

How To Keep Your Chromebook Up To Date.

As I work with people on the new Chromebooks I noticed that a lot of people do not ever completely shut down their Chromebooks. 

They tell me they do this so that they don't have to type their username and password every day. 

While I can see how this is slightly more convenient the problem is:

Chromebooks do all of their system updating during the initial startup. 

So if you are not shut do completely ever your Chromebook never gets updated.

Chromebooks try to communicate to their human caregivers that updates are available by showing the symbol shown below. This arrow symbol is located in the bottom, right-hand corner near the clock.

Your Chromebook will love you for taking the time to give it a little TLC.

ALT D to Relieve Frustration

Small things are Sometimes the Big Things

This might seem like a minor thing, however if you have ever tried to select the text in the address bar with the mouse and it just does not quite select it all, then this is the keyboard combo for you.

The ALT key pressed at the same time as the D key will focus you right in the search/address bar. It also selects all text so you can immediately start typing your next search keywords with out touching the mouse at all.

If you are still reading this keyboard combination saves you:

1 left click, 1 left button hold and drag, and 1 delete key 

or 

1 left click, 1 left button hold and drag, 1 right click, 1 left mouse drag select and 1 left click.

How to Add an App to a Chromebook or Chromebrowser

I was reflecting on some of my previous posts and realized I was skipping an important step. I forgot that Chromebooks and the Chrome browser may be completely new to my audience. So I have created this video to explain how to add an App to your google apps account.

As always feel free to comment and send me your feedback.

CHROME OS

It has been a  long time since my last post.

All of the schools in the districts now have access to Chromebooks of Chromeboxes. The video below explains what the Chromebooks and Chromeboxes are. It explains Chrome OS. Understanding Chrome OS will help you understand how the Chromebook works.

A Couple of Links for Chromebooks

Chromebook Links

Here are a few Chromebook links to share with students or to just gain a few tips.

OMG Chromebooks tutorials page has some nice resources this is a link directly to the article on perserving chromebook battery life.

Chromebook shortcuts shown using Thinglink

Here is a  Chromebook cheatcode image.

Hover over the circles to find out what the key combo does.



Credit to EDonline for making this.

"VVSD Educational Services: Chromebook Keyboard & Touchpad Tips." Edline. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

3 Useful Apps/Websites for Your Google Account.

I realize there are thousands of sites that post lists of applications and weblinks.

However, I thought it might be good to post a list that I know will work on our network.

1. Google drive templates 

 This is an app that brings you to the templates gallery for Google Drive tools, (i.e docs, spreadsheets, presentations, forms).

2. CK-12 

This web-app is a great online textbook site. When you use your Google account to login you can then customize an online textbook for you class they they call them flexbooks. My one issue with this site is that not all subjects are equally represented

            Another great aspect is that the flexbooks can be saved as .pdf as well as be  accessed on student's             smartphone or any of the top e-readers including Kindle, Nook, and ipad.

3. Diigo Bookmark Manager

 I have mentioned Diigo before, it is my personal choice for Bookmark management or collecting

Why: One of the most important skills to learn for using the internet is how to searching and evaluating websites. But once you find and evaluate the sites it is important to have a way to get back

What: A bookmark manager is an Browser extension you can add to your browser collect the sites you have determined to be valuable. 

What I like about Diigo is that I can highlight parts of pages and it saves the highlights and the link.

Diigo is an extension you can add to your browser for easy access to the Bookmarking tools.

All the above mentioned tools can be found in the Chromestore and are all free.

Chromebooks and Using the Diigo Web Tool to Share.

        This past week I met with several groups of teachers at the High School to discuss Chromebooks.
I was reading a post created by Dinsan Francis on the site Chrome Story. The full post can be found here 100 Tips for Your Google Chromebook


The following list is are my annotations  using  Diigo  an online tool I use to organize my bookmarks and also annotate web pages. There are a variety of bookmarking tools but I have been using Diigo because I like the annotation feature.

Here is my abridged version of 100 Tips for Your Google Chromebook  

• Looking for caps  lock? press ALT + SEARCH
• For Delete key, press ALT + Backspace.
• To find hundreds of offline apps visit the offline apps section of the Chrome Web Store,
• To take a screenshot, Ctrl+ 
• Take a partial screenshot by selecting the area you want to capture,Ctrl+ Shift+ 
• Press Shift + Alt + M to open the file manager
• Hold Shift key and click on any app to open it in a separate window
• Ctrl + S to save webpages for offline reading.
• If you try to open a .swf file (flash) from the Files app, you will get an error saying it is unsupported. Drag the file to a Chrome tab, and it will work fine!
• On the file manager, Ctrl + E creates a new folder
• Press Ctrl + Shift + Q , twice (second time for confirmation) to exit

  
  

  

  
  I have narrowed the list considerably based on our Chromebooks being shared, many of the

 

Chromebook shortcut keys

Using Chromebooks?
Here are a few keyboard shortcuts to help you work faster.

1. Show Keyboard Shortcut Overlay

If you only remember one of the shortcuts I mention in this article make it this one. This combination will bring up a guide to all of the keyboard shortcuts on your Chromebook.

2. Logout
Remember you are sharing these Chromebooks. If you want to keep your account safe you need to remember to log out. This shortcut will help you log out quick before you shut down.

3. Toggle Caps Lock On/Off

Our Chromebooks don’t have a Caps Lock key.  So when you want to write with ALL CAPS.Just hit the following key combo to turn it on, and turn it back off when you’re done.

4. Take a Screenshot on a Chromebook

To take a screenshot of the entire screen press the Ctrl key and the Switcher key at the same time.

If you want to select only part of the screen you can add the following combination.

It may take some practice to get used to using them but it will be worth it.