Chromebooks are powerful. But nobody seems to tell you about some of their best features! Learn some of the things you never learned before in this post.
Chromebooks are packed with some pretty amazing features that make them unique digital devices for students.
In a Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit video presentation, I shared some of my favorite tips for making the most of Chromebooks in the classroom — for students and for YOU!
The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit is a FREE online conference for teachers. It’s open in the second half of December each year. While it’s open, you have access to dozens of fantastic video presentations like this — for FREE!
Sign up for the summit while it’s open — or sign up for an email reminder when it opens again — at DitchSummit.com. If you sign up while the summit is open, you’ll get an automated email that will let you get started watching videos right away!
Here are 10 Chromebook tips you might not know …
Remember the F1-F12 keys on the old-school keyboards? They’re gone and have been replaced with something way more useful! Try out these keys at the top of your Chromebook keyboard …
Opening your favorite apps on a Chromebook is super easy. Add them to your “shelf” — the bar of icons at the bottom of your Chromebook. Open the apps in the shelf with a keyboard shortcut: Alt + position number of the app. The first one is Alt + 1. The second is Alt + 2, etc.
This one isn’t a line dance you’d do at a wedding. It’s one of my favorite touchpad gestures on Chromebooks! Put three fingers gently on the touchpad and slide them to the right or left. It lets you switch which tab is active / displayed on your screen. It makes multi-tasking so quick and easy!
You can put two windows side by side in a snap! Drag a window to the top right or top left corner of your Chromebook. It’ll snap to half the size of your screen. Drag one to the right and one to the left and you’ll have equally-sized side-by-side windows right away!
PRO TIP: The Tab Scissors and Tab Glue Chrome extensions can do something similar. Tab Scissors cuts your screen in half, putting tabs on both sides of it. Tab Glue restores your window to one full-sized window again.
Using two fingers on the touch pad can help you “get up” and “get down” in a couple ways! Drag those two fingers up and down on the touchpad to scroll up and scroll down. Or, hold Ctrl + Alt + two-finger drag to enable to screen magnifying glass!
Double-click the top of a window on a Chromebook to maximize it. Double-click it again to make it smaller and moveable again.
Screenshots are so useful, and they’re super easy on Chromebooks …
Put that magnifying glass button on the Chromebook keyboard to work. Push it and then ask it some basic information questions, like math problems, dictionary definitions or measurement conversions.
This is a Google Chrome tip, but because Chromebooks were made for Chrome, this is very fitting! Keep your most commonly used websites saved as bookmarks in your bookmarks bar. Ctrl + Shift + B will show/hide your bookmarks bar. Use the star button in your web browser bar to add your current website as a bookmark. Make sure to change its location to “Bookmarks Bar” so it’ll show up in that bar!
Don’t just click a link to open it. Do a three-finger tap on your touchpad to open that link in a brand new window.
Did you find something you didn’t know? Don’t miss out on other fantastic video presentations like these in the Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit! Register at DitchSummit.com.
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