About the Chromebooks

Need-To-Know:  The Cart

• The wheels only swivel at one end.  It's like a car--you can steer the tires in front, but not those in the rear.
• The power switch on back glows green when charging is activated.
• Depress the thumbpad below the front latch firmly to open it (it will pop up).  Turn latch to the right to open the door.  (We have ordered two Master combination locks for use with this cart, the same as we have for the MacBooks).
• To keep fuses from blowing, this cart won't charge all machines at same time—instead, those having the lowest charge are automatically charged first.  The indicator lights glow bright blue when fully charged.
• Be gentle with the  HP power connectors—they are not as durable as Mac's magnetic system.

Using a Chromebook

• First, open the lid, then depress and release the "on" switch in the upper right corner of the keyboard to turn the ChromeBook On.
• Students must log in using their "netmail address" plus their 6-digit date of birth.   A netmail address is their student ID with "@student.lbschools.net appended—for example, 123456789@student.lbschools.net.  The netmail address and password must be entered twice to get in—just follow the prompts.
• Teachers log in using their Groupwise email address and regular Novell password (also twice).
• First time either a student or teacher logs onto a Chromebook, they must pick a photo avatar.  This is used when you sign out and shut down.
• Close the first window that comes up ("take a tour").
• Click the Chrome icon to open the Chrome browser (it's the only one on these machines).
• No Office programs are installed.  Instead you'll use either the Google Apps or the new online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Click the Google or Microsoft links on our Hamilton home page, or you can enter these quick URLs to access them instead:
  • Google Apps – drive.google.com
  • Office Online – portal.office.com
• To print:  It is possible for your students to print to your networked classroom printer from the Chromebooks, but significant advance preparation is required—see the article, setting up Cloud Printing on our Tech Discussion Board.  However, in many cases, it is actually easier and better to  have the students share their documents with you electronically.  To do this, you must share your groupwise email address with them, but voila!  Suddenly you can put comments on their work without disturbing what they wrote, and you needn't even return the papers, since they can see your comments instantly!
• Sign out (don't forget this—it's important for security!), by clicking your avatar in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.  Then click Sign out in the upper left of the resulting pop-up window.
• Once signed out, also don't forget to Shut Down.  Look to the lower left-hand corner of your screen to do this.  Help preserve our battery and system life!
• Be gentle when replacing the  Chromebooks in the cart.  The charging cords tend to get in the way, and a little TLC is required to replace the connectors gently.
• Be careful when closing the latch on the door.  Rotating the latch causes a metal pin to extend out of the bottom of the door.  If this pin is not positioned directly above the hole that it mates with, the cart can be damaged.  Be sure the door is pushed completely in when it's time to close the latch.

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