Post #3: Chromebook Tips, K-2 iPads, and Zoom Update & Tips

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This spoke to me this week. We all need to give ourselves some grace as we teach in a totally new way. 

I've divided up this post into 3 sections. Hope that helps keeps items organized.

  • Students Chromebooks
  • K-2 iPads
  • Tips for Teachers

Student Chromebooks:

We understand that many students are experiencing issues on their Chromebooks. As noted in Leisha's email to families, please remind your students of the following: 

  • Chromebooks should be restarted on a regular basis. This forces an auto-update of the Chrome OS. We recommend you shut down the Chromebook every night and restart it during your lunch break. (You can also choose Help:  About Google Chrome to force Chrome OS updates, but a shutdown/restart is important.)
  • Students should not have more than 2 browser tabs open when they are in a Zoom session with their teacher. This will minimize the number of computer resources being used by other applications.
  • When on a Zoom session, the audio quality might improve if the video camera is turned off. While our practice is for video cameras to be left on at all times, a teacher may suggest to a student to turn off their video camera when they are speaking to improve audio performance. (This helped many students during tech class on Friday.)

Families should continue to submit a Student Help Ticket for all technology issues and refer to Remote Learning for Families for more information and updates.

Are you a new Chromebook User? A new resource has been added to the WIT - For Families page, called Introduction to Chromebooks - a basic overview of Chromebooks & Google Drive. 

K-2 iPads:

At the elementary level, Joe has two BIG priorities this week:

  • Setup and deploy iPads to K-2 teachers
  • Make sure all of the K-2 iPads have the same apps. 

Are you a new iPad user? An iPad slide deck has been added to the WIT - For Families page called WPS Elementary iPads. The slide deck provides an overview of the iPad, its features and a variety of tools students will access. Feel free to pass this along to families.

Tips for Teachers - All Zoom related:


Zoom UPDATE on MacBooks: Zoom recently released a bunch of features such as a personalized gallery view. You can reorder the participants! Follow this tutorial to update the desktop client app on your computer.


Audio Issues when sharing a video on Zoom: In case you missed this - When you share your screen with Zoom make sure that you have this audio option checked as shown below. (First, make sure you install the zoom audio fix below before you try this).


  • Zoom Audio Fix - We need a Zoom Audio Fix if we want to show anything with sound while on Zoom. Restart your laptop, login, launch Self Service                and look for; please submit a help ticket if you do not see the Zoom Audio Fix in Self-Service.

 


Roles: Great article discussing Zoom roles and their controls. 

Audio Feedback - If you and a colleague are in the same room and on the same Zoom, you might have experienced some audio feedback. Here are a few tips:

  1. Both participants should wear headsets with mics.
  2. If you are not speaking, your mic should be muted.
  3. Try moving the microphone away from the speakers (step back a little bit from your computer).
  4. Turn down the microphone volume.
  5. Make sure the audio mic and sound is set to come from the headphones and not your computer. (In my example, my headphones are the AirPods.)