Alternatives to printing with Chromebooks -By Gabe Fadel

This year Chromebooks have been introduced to our school on amuch larger scale than previous years.  Both the Senior and the Freshman classes have the advantage to use these devices in their classes.  Many teachers have already started integrating Chromebooks into their classes, and the question of printing with Chromebooks has arisen several times.  Normally Chromebooks utilize a service called Cloud Print for printing, however we do not have this service currently at LHS. Printing is still indirectly possible with Chromebooks but it a tedious process.  There are several Google based services that teachers and students should consider using as alternatives to printing.

Google Drive

Most students and teachers are already familiar with Google Drive, it allows for students and teachers to share documents, notes, and assignments with each other.  This is the easiest alternative for printing and has many advantages.  When a document is saved to Google Drive it can be acessed and edited from any computer.  Documents on Google Drive can then be shared with other students and teachers.  Once shared, others can view, comment, or edit the document, making collaberation or reviewing easy.  Once documents are shared with a Teacher they can view it in their drive and use it for grading.

 

Google Classroom

Another viable alternative to printing is with Google Classroom.  Google Classroom is a new education service where teachers essentially create an online classroom to supliment their actual classroom.  Once teachers set up an online classroom for one of their classes and have added all their students they can post assignments in their classroom.  Each student is prompted to make an individual Google Doc that they can write in.  Once they are finished they click the “Turn In” button and the Doc is automatically sent to the teacher for review.  The teacher can then review the assignments from any computer as long as they are logged in on their Google account.

 

Printing 

If there is no alternative to printing there is a workaround for printing with Chromebooks.  There still is no way to directly print from Chromebooks in out school.  The way to print in school is to put the document on Google drive (or make it there in the first place).  Then log on to one of the desktops in the Media Center, open the document on Google Drive and print it from there.  Printing is still possible with Chromebooks, but there are very viable alternatives that should be taken into consideration.