Tech Help

• Visit Chromebook Help or How to Chromebook for general tips and resources.

• If you're using a CSD-owned Chromebook, you might not be able to adjust some settings or install certain apps or extensions.

From the Classroom login page or the Chromebook login screen, you'll enter your G Suite account name and password. (If using a family Windows, macOS or Linux device, we strongly encourage users to first log out of all other Google accounts in Chrome, including personal ones.)

• Your CSD G Suite account name is

  • Last 2 numbers of Student Number (aka lunch number)

  • First 4 letters of first name (not your nickname)

  • First 4 letters of last name

  • @csdecatur.net

  • For example, student Ruthabell Scottsville (student number 98227) would have the account name 27ruthscot@csdecatur.net.

• Your default password is

  • PreK-2: The student number, e.g. 12345. Students will not be prompted to create a new password.

  • 3-5: The word student followed by their student number, e.g. student12345. Students will not be prompted to create a new password.

  • 6-12: The word student followed by their student number, e.g. student12345. Students will be prompted to create a new password when they first login with this default.

• CSD-owned Chromebooks can only be logged into with a CSD G Suite account.

Middle and high school students can check for attendance-taking via the Infinite Campus Student Portal. Use the Single Sign-On option on the portal to login, and from there use your CSD G Suite account. A demonstration video is available here.

• Restart your computer, and close browser tabs/windows and programs that you don't need open for virtual learning.

• When sharing your display, avoid sharing the Meet window itself. When possible, use the option to share an individual Chrome tab. If you need to switch to sharing another tabs, move to that tab and click the Share this tab instead button to shift focus.

• Uninstall Chrome extensions, especially any that are designed to enhance Meet. Chrome extensions the purport to enhance Meet are prone to break and sometimes even break Meet.

• CSD has configured Meet to try to adjust video and sound quality based on your network conditions. However, you can proactively downgrade video and/or sound. Before clicking the Join button to open a Meet, , they can proactively downgrade the quality of video sent and received. Here is a demonstration.

Some other factors might be beyond your control, such as the quality of the network connection you're using (beyond even your home Wi-Fi). From the three-dot overflow menu in the bottom-right corner of Meet, there is a Troubleshooting option that indicates network and processor load and suggestions to improve performance.

• Our policy is for G Suite tools to match the information we have on official record in the Infinite Campus (IC) student information system.

• To add (or remove) a nickname in IC, a parent/guardian must email the school counselor to request the student's nickname be added/removed. The counselor will then notify Information Services of the change, and the display name in tools like Meet and email will be updated soon thereafter.

• Adding or removing a nickname will change how the student's name appears in G Suite collaboration tools, but it will not change the student's account name (##xxxxxxxx@csdecatur.net).

• If the name is not just a nickname but rather related to a shift in identity (e.g. a last name change due to adoption, gender identity transition, or other legal name change), contact your counselor for additional information.

• One of the biggest causes of this is being logged into multiple Google accounts in the same browser profile.

• Log out of all your Google/G Suite accounts, and log back in with only your CSD G Suite account.

• You can setup multiple user profiles in Chrome on a Windows, macOS, or Linux device -- written guidance is here, and you can see some indicators of where to click in this video or this other one.

1. Restart the Chromebook or computer. This almost always resolves the issue. If that doesn’t work...

2. In Chrome, to the left of the web address, click the Lock icon.

3. On the menu that appears, check that the setting next to Camera says Allow.

See this page for more detailed directions.

If a website isn’t working, you might need to change your settings to allow Flash.

1. To the left of the web address, click the Lock icon.

2. Click Site Settings.

3. In the new tab, to the right of Flash, click the down arrow then Allow.

4. Go back to the site and reload the page.

See this page for more detailed directions with pictures

Note: Beginning early 2021, Flash will no longer be supported. Website content creators will need to update their websites to eliminate their reliance on Flash.

1. Make sure device is plugged into a known working outlet

2. Make sure power cord is securely plugged into power brick

3. Plug in Chromebook with the lid open and let it charge for 20 minutes and then try turning it on.

Press and hold down together the Control, Shift, and Refresh buttons

• Chromebook reboot will fix the vast majority of problems, including most difficulties with the keyboard, freezing, applications, and the built-in camera.

• Reboot a Chromebook either by pressing and holding down the power button for ~10 seconds, or press the Power and Refresh buttons simultaneously. This page has pictures that might help with resetting the device.

• Google has also published a page with information on fixing common Chromebook hardware and system problems

Yes! We realize virtual learning has accelerated and/or reinforced the importance of families coming to grips with how everyone in a household interacts with technology. https://www.csdecatur.net/techathome continues to provide some guidance and resources on managing technology at home.

When logged into a Chromebook or the desktop Chrome browser with a primary CSD account, students’ access to YouTube is moderated by our CIPA-compliant content filter. Starting this fall, we rolled out a significant update to the content filter that more thoroughly blocks non-educational YouTube contents.

However, some aspects of YouTube remain visible. This limited YouTube access is necessary because some content providers of online learning material shifted their video content to YouTube to better meet remote learning needs during the pandemic. Some other learning tool providers use YouTube’s infrastructure, if not the YouTube website/service per se, to process and display video content. We initially fully blocked YouTube for elementary students and discovered that doing so significantly impeded teachers’ ability to deliver content to students during remote learning (including teachers who were unaware some of their content was processed through YouTube’s infrastructure).

In a regular classroom, students’ healthy use of technology is supported by things like our content filter, but the most critical piece is the supervising teacher. Like so many other things, this supervisory role has fallen to parents and other guardians. We have been testing an upgrade to our content filter that provides some additional filters for YouTube content.

The Annual Data Update (ADU) is our term for doing much of the opening-of-school paperwork online: emergency contact updates, medical forms, sign-offs, etc. are available to submit/complete via the Parent Portal. The very top of the Parents page has a video and directions on accessing the ADU.

The Infinite Campus Parent Portal is where you complete the Annual Data Update, access our student's schedule, update their balance with Nutrition, and is a gateway to additional academic and assessment data on your student. Most parents create their Portal account and password as part of the registration process.

• If you need to look up your Portal user name or create a new Portal account, start here.

  • Parents who have not yet created a Portal account and who are presented a complex GUID: copy that GUID and click New user? at the bottom of the Parent Portal login page. Paste the GUID into the Activation Key field and click Submit. Continue the process to create your Parent Portal account!

• You can also use the Forgot Password? and Forgot Username? links on the Parent Portal login page if you have previously used the Portal and need help getting back in.

Please check that the invitation message -- which comes from "Littlesis Admin (Classroom)" -- was routed to spam or some other folder. Search your email, including your trash and spam folders, for the phrase littlesis admin to make sure it wasn't mis-routed.

The high rate of guardian connection/summary invites has caused some email invites to be delayed in transmitting, especially as families are updating their contact information via the Annual Data Update.

Yes.

• If you received a Guardian Summary invitation to a non-Google account, clicking the Accept button will sign you up to receive weekly messages to your email account.

• Parents using a Google account to receive notifications have the option to adjust the frequency with which they receive messages (either weekly or daily) and also to see a list of all students with whom that account has a guardianship association.

• For additional information on guardian summaries, visit Get Classroom email summaries (for guardians) and/or Guardian email summaries FAQ.

• One option is to change your primary email address in the Infinite Campus Parent Portal.

• Alternatively, you can set a secondary email address in the Parent Portal and, once that address is updated in IC (it might take a couple of days), ask your child's teacher to manually send you a guardian invitation via their tools in Classroom.

• For additional information on guardian summaries, visit Get Classroom email summaries (for guardians) and/or Guardian email summaries FAQ.

• The hotspot carries data over a cell connection, and unfortunately the hotspot cannot overcome poor cellular data reception.

• If the hotspot is being used to augment Wi-Fi already in the home, be aware that two Wi-Fi networks running in the same home may interfere with each other and degrade the performance of both.

Students who are logged into the Chrome browser with sync turn on, or logged into a Chromebook with their CSD G Suite account as the primary user, have several extensions pushed out to them to augment the learning experience or to provide additional security. These extensions are

• Classlink OneClick, in anticipation of an upcoming district IT project

• Rocket (PreK and grades 3-12) or Relay (K-2), which routes student traffic through our CIPA-compliant content filter

• Nod, to provide non-verbal feedback in Meet

• Google Docs Offline, to cache Drive content offline so students don't need to be connected all the time to work in Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides

• Kami, for online PDF editing

Other extensions are available for students to install on-demand, and our approved list is here (link will only work when logged in with a CSD student's G Suite account).