Tech Tip Tuesday: Tab Grouping in Chrome

Do you often have 10+ tabs open in your browser? Open tabs can really suck the life out of your browser’s memory – and make everything run slower. But maybe you need those tabs open because you’ve got what seems like a million projects to work on…

Tab grouping in Chrome to the rescue!

Now you can group your tabs together in ways that makes sense to the work you are doing, give that group a name and a color, and then collapse the group when you’re not working on that particular project. De-clutters your view, makes it easier to find the particular tab you need, AND when tabs are grouped and collapsed, they don’t steal precious resources from your browser’s memory!

Here’s How:

  1. Right-click on a tab, choose “Add tab to new group”
  2. Create a group name that makes sense and choose a color
  3. Right-click another tab that belong in that group and choose “Add tab to group” and then choose the correct group name
  4. Once you’ve added all the tabs that belong in that group, click on the colored tab you created to collapse. Click on the tab again to expand.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Quick Fix for “Dead” Chromebooks

When a Chromebook won’t turn on – even when plugged in – try this handy trick:

  1. unplug the Chromebook from power
  2. shut the lid of the Chromebook
  3. plug Chromebook back into power source
  4. open lid and wait 5 – 10 seconds without touching any keys

You’ll be surprised how many times this will result in the Chromebook rebooting and be completely back to normal!

Tech Tip Tuesday: Improve Font Readability

Atkinson Hyperlegible is a font available in your Google fonts that you should consider adding to your font list. It was designed specifically to increase legibility for readers with low vision and to improve comprehension for all readers.

To add Atkinson Hyperlegible, select “More Fonts” from the Font Menu in a Google App and then type “Atkinson” in the search bar. Click on the name in the search to select.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Digital Citizenship Lessons

With the emphasis on everything and everyone being online these days, digital citizenship has never been more important. The wonderful folks at Common Sense Media make talking with your students about digital citizenship easy with their free, interactive, grade-leveled, and high-quality lesson plans. The topics are timely and high interest – everything from digital footprints to media literacy to relationships and cyberbullying. It’s everything any teacher would need – and talking about digital citizenship with students is something all teachers should be doing.

Check out their resources here: Digital Citizenship Lessons

Tech Tip Tuesday: Chromebook Acting Wonky?

Chromebooks are generally very reliable, but as with any electronic device, they can occasionally need a reset. If you’ve tried logging out and logging back in, and shutting down and restarting and problems still remain, it’s possible the issue is with a setting. Watch the video below to see how to quickly and easily reset a Chromebook.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Chromebook Quick Tips

Chromebooks are everywhere these days. At least, they are everywhere when it comes to in-the-classroom technology. They are fabulous tools, and they can do some pretty cool things – and even if you haven’t had a chance to explore all the keyboard shortcuts, I’ll bet your student have 🙂

Here are a few shortcuts that will save you some time and frustration as we head back to school with devices in student’s hands.

shift + ctrl + t

will open recently closed tabs – super handy if you just know that a student could not possibly find the outline assignment you just gave them to be that funny

ctrl + alt + z

if a student’s Chromebook starts talking unexpectedly, here’s how to get it to quiet down. This feature is great for accessibility, but if a student needs that support, a pair of headphones are worth the investment

ctrl + shift + refresh arrow

if a student’s screen is sideways or upside down, this particular key combination will solve the problem.

Tech Tip Tuesday – Google Hacks for Remote Learning

Interesting times we are living in, aren’t they?

Teachers everywhere are scrambling to provide online content for their students. On top of that, they are preparing for what may be an online start in the fall. In this tech tip, I’m going to show you a Google hack with Slides that you can use to make your presentations more interactive for your students.

Animations Help to Isolate Ideas

I always use animations in my google slides. I feel like doing so helps me emphasize the most important parts of a lesson. It also avoids the “head-down-madly-copying” syndrome. I want students to interact with the content and each other!

So sharing a Google Slide presentation as a lesson is problematic. In edit mode, my presentations are basically just pretty google docs with pictures. In a remote learning environment, I feel like my students lose too much if I just share my slides and tell them it’s the content, I’d rather tell them about The best secondary school English tuition and explain to them how it can help their career.

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