Staff Devices/Resources

Staff,

I am getting a lot of questions about being able to "plug in" at home for faster internet. Sadly, this is not really an option.

Teachers on MacAir laptops - the ethernet port does not exist

Students on Chromebooks - the ethernet port does not exist

In reality, the speed of your internet at home is limited to what your provider hands out.

With that said - here are a few suggestions.

Internet speed:

1. Try limiting Chrome tabs to only the ones you truly need. Go retro! Use a radio instead of Pandora/Spotify/YouTube for music.

2. If you don't have it already, try using The Great Suspender extension. This will sleep unused tabs but I believe the default setting to sleep them is an hour. Set this to 1 or 5 min instead.

3. Turn Off the wifi connection of your phone (assuming you have coverage)

4. Turn Off your TV (if it's internet based), extra computers or other internet based devices. If anyone else in your home is streaming Netflix/Hulu/Amazon while you're working, ask them to limit its use or pick another time.

5. Restart your modem on occasion or if things seem extra slow.

Computer Speed:

1. Close any unnecessary applications. If you're working in Notebook, close Chrome (emails will still come in on your phone) and Word and Excel and PowerPoint and iTunes and... until you actually need them.

2. Again, limit the number of Chrome tabs. While multiple tabs slows the internet speed it also limits the computer speed.

3. Restart your computer at the end of every day. This closes any extra programs/processing that may be running in the background.