How to Change the Language on a Chromebook

We've recently had some issues with students going into the language settings and switching the language to something else. This video will show you how to go into the Chromebook settings and change it back to english.

Chromebook Tips

We're wrapping up the process of rolling out Chromebooks through our middle school (5th - 8th grade), and throughout the process I've heard a lot of talk about how teachers are worried that they won't know how to use Chromebooks.  At first I didn't understand what the problem was, I mean it's just a laptop that's based in the cloud, right?  After talking to people and listening to their concerns, I realized that a lot of people don't quite understand "the cloud" and think that Chromebooks are going to be some new type of technology that they're going to have to master.  Aside from the main difference that there isn't a hard drive and that you have to use some sort of cloud based storage e.g. Google Drive, or Drop Box, there really isn't much difference in how you use the device compared with the laptop computers that we've been using with our students for years now.

Along with the need to share tips and tricks about new technology with teachers in my building and throughout the rest of the district, I've also found that there are a lot of shortcuts that I commonly use that other teachers never knew about (I guess working in the business world before becoming a teacher has some advantages) which brings me to the point of this post.  This first infographic covers some basic keyboard shortcuts that work on all types of laptops as well as on Chromebooks; I created it using Piktochart.  I plan on following this post up with more helpful hints in using Chromebooks in your classroom.

For When You Just Need the Text to Speak to You

Last year, our district started its 1-to-1 initiative by putting Chromebook carts in my classroom and each eighth grade classroom (because we had all taken REMC's Blended Learning in the Classroom course).  I was on one of the teams that had a number of students who had accommodations stating that texts and assessments be read aloud to them.  My problem that year was that I only had support during one quarter of my classes, so if I was going to read every chapter from the book, and every quiz and test aloud, ALL of my students had to hear me; while this benefitted some of my students without IEPs, many of my students complained of being distracted.

In order to make sure that I was meeting the needs of all of my students, I started recording myself reading chapters using Audacity, but found that that was very time consuming; there had to be another way.  I'm not sure how I discovered Chromevox, which is a screen reader extension for Google Chrome, but I do know that many of my students benefited from hearing the text read aloud while they followed along in their books.