Skills for learning at home
Information on online skills you might find helpful when learning at home.
How to log in to G Suite
This is important because if you need to log in to GSuite first in order to access many other online tools.
Follow these steps:
- Go to google.com and click the sign in button at the top right.
- Type in your username and password.
If you have forgotten your username or password, you or your parent/caregiver will need email your teacher.
Please make sure you follow our values/guidelines [LINK TO THESE] when writing your email messages.
Send or reply to an email
- Once logged into Gmail, click the Compose button top left.
- Type the name or email of the person/people you wish to send an email to.
- In the subject line, briefly write what the message is about
- Write your message in the body of the email.
Use Hangouts
There are two ways to do this: from inside your gmail inbox, or by going to hangouts.google.com
- Inside Gmail look for the sidebar on the right of your inbox.
- From there you can create a instant message conversation with another student, or a group of students.
- You can also create a video meeting by clicking the little video icon.
Capture a screen shot
Method 1: On an iPad, iPhone or iPod:
- Locate what you want to take a photo of (eg. a webpage/etc.).
- Hold down the sleep and clicker buttons at the same time - the device should make a photo sound.
- The screenshot will capture and shrink to the bottom left of the screen.
- Tap to open and edit/crop it, or save it to your photo album.
- From there, you can share or save it, plus edit it
Method 2: On a Chromebook
- Hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys at once, then press the Switch window button.
- Chrome’s cursor will be change to a crosshair. Select a portion of the screen you want to capture, then release the trackpad or mouse button.
- The screenshot will be saved in the Downloads folder, the same as a full screenshot.
Alternatively, download and install an extension that allows you to take screenshots like this one.
Method 3: Using a Windows PC
- Press Windows + Shift + S.
- Your screen will appear grayed out and your mouse cursor will change.
- Click and drag on your screen to select the part of your screen you want to capture.
- A screenshot of the screen region you selected will be copied to your clipboard.
- You can paste it in any application by selecting Edit > Paste or pressing Ctrl + V.
Or for more options, search for and use the Snipping Tool
Capture and upload a video
There are lots of ways to do this - the best way will depend on what you are trying to do. Here are some options.
Option 1 - using an iPad
- Go into the Settings of the iPad.
- Scroll to ‘Control Centre’.
- Tap ‘Customise Controls’.
- Tap the green “add” button beside ‘screen recording’. This adds it to Control Centre options.
- Exit out of the Settings.
- Swipe down (on newer iPads,) or up from the bottom (older iPads), to open Control Centre.
- Click this button to screen record what you are doing on your iPad. Your video will be saved in your photos where you can edit/share it.
Option 2 - using a Chromebook or other laptop
- We suggest you install either Loom or Screencastify from the Chrome Web Store onto the Google Chrome web browser.
- Once installed, log in and you can then capture your screen or take a video.
- Either allows you to share your recordings using Google Drive or other sharing tools.
Capture and upload your voice
There are a variety of ways to do this - take a look at these options:
- vocaroo.com - what I like about this tool is that it enables the easy recording then has multiple options for sharing (save as .mp3 file), email, send via social media, save online or even create a QR code to share. It even has an option to remove background noise on by default.
- audiovoicerecorder.com - allows you to record sound with a microphone and save it as an mp3 file to play anywhere. Very simple to use.
- online-voice-recorder.com - creates a downloadable .mp3 file. What this tool does that the others don't is it allows the user to trim the audio clip - see the screenshot.
Google apps download links for your device
These are the apps that G Suite uses - click the link below for either Apple or Android devices to download and install them. If you are using a laptop or chromebook, you already have access to them using the Chrome web browser.