Using a Chromebook

Professional Development Points - 1

Target Audience - K-12 Teachers

The first videos are taken from YouTube to introduce you to what a Chromebook is.

Now lets see how to use your Chromebook. This next video (enjoy the Australian accent) walks you through how to log on to your Chromebook and use its features. You will login with any Gmail account. Your Bristow email "@bristow.k12.ok.us" is actually a special gmail account called Google Apps For Education or GAFE. You can use it to login with and will want to use that account at school or when working on classroom work because it allows more features (Google Classroom, SMART Amp, and many others) which requires GAFE accounts rather than a basic Gmail account. But if you want to also add your personal gmail account you can and will be able to switch back and forth between the accounts.

I've added some helpful articles in the Related Links section below. The main points in using and knowing the advantages/disadvantages of a Chromebook without getting too "techie" are as follows:

• A Chromebook is faster, has a better battery life, no booting up time, automatically updates, and has a very low risk of getting a virus because it functions "in the cloud" and not on your hard drive as a regular laptop.
• A Chromebook does not allow you to install new programs such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc) or any other programs you would install on your pc or laptop. You can still do word processing by using the cloud based Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and others instead. You already have these available and have probably been using them with your school Gmail account. Google Docs even allows you to save as a Word Doc so you can use it on your PC or laptop if needed. You cannot use a Chromebook to run your SmartBoard because it requires a software download. I believe this applies to Smart Notebook as well but Smart does have an online lite version of their program here.
• Your Chromebook does have various ports and will differ from model to model. You will have USB ports that should work similar to a PC, possibly an HDMI port which could allow you to connect to a TV, and an SD slot for photos from your camera. You do have a small hard drive with limited storage so you could put photos on your hard drive but may want to consider "cloud storage" which doesn't take up hard drive space.
• Your Chromebook has photo/video/audio capturing capabilities.
• Chromebooks are good if you mainly do web browsing, Facebook, YouTube, some Microsoft Office use, blogging etc. If you mainly want to work in Microsoft Office, Word, Excel etc. and manage photo and music libraries you will need your PC or laptop. If you want to play lots of video games, video/music editing, coding, or web design use you Mac.

Now that you've learned some new things about your Chromebook you will need to click the Chromebook badge below and take a short quiz to earn your pd points and badge. You may want to refer to the Study Guide in the Related Links section below before you take the quiz.

Don't hesitate to call me if you need individual instruction on getting started on your Chromebook, I'm always available.