A couple of days ago Adobe announced a big update to the Google Chrome Acrobat Extension. We now have basic editing capabilities for PDF’s. Some of the functionality you’re used to on Acrobat on a PC can now be completed on your Chromebook.

There’s a lot of waffle in the article so we’ll list the key features below but you can read the full article here if you wish.

  • Rotate, delete, or reorder PDF pages
    • You can also merge multiple PDF documents together. Or split a document into smaller documents.
  • Convert from PDF
    • Convert from PDF to a Word, Excel or Powerpoint document, webpage or a JPG.
  • Comments, markups and highlights
  • E-Signatures and Form Fields
    • No more printing, completing by hand then scanning back in.

Some of these features are free which means you can do these on your personal devices, others fall under the college’s Adobe subscription so as long as you sign in with your Barton Peveril account you’ll be able to use them.

If you haven’t got it already, you can add it from the Chrome Web Store. 

This was announced on the Adobe Blog on October 12th.

Google Jamboard is a digital whiteboard app that allows you to collaborate with others and join together your ideas.



Jamboard is Google’s answer to an Interactive Whiteboard, originally designed and marketed with a portable 55-inch, 4k display. Google have since released Android and iOS apps for it, perfect for touchscreen Chromebooks here at Barton! Even if you don’t have a touchscreen device you can still connect to a Jam on your web browser at jamboard.google.com

It is connected to G Suite so you can log in with your College credentials as normal giving you the ability to present, edit and share files with Google services like Drive, Sheets, and Slides.

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BBC iPlayer lets you watch BBC content from your computer, Smart TV or mobile device.


BBC iPlayer isn’t just for catching up on last night’s Eastenders or rewatching Gavin & Stacey for the 17th time, you can also find a lot of educational material in its depths. You can watch the latest episodes of QI to learn more quirky facts about the world or explore the hundreds of episodes of Science and Nature documentaries. There’s also great comedy and entertainment shows for when you have finished your work for the day and need to relax.

David Attenborough alone can take you through Climate Change for your Science lesson research, the different ecosystems around the world for your Geography research or even the early years of making nature documentaries for Media lesson research.

Some more examples of programmes that can aid your research are below:

Criminology – Jack the Ripper

Engineering – The Limit: Trickiest Tunnel

Music – Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Sport – Shane Williams: Rugby, Concussion and Me

Dance – The Royal Ballet: Mayerling

Don’t forget though that some episodes are only available for a limited time and can be removed from iPlayer at any time.

You can look through all the episodes and series available for each subject on the BBC iPlayer website or click one of these categories; History, Documentaries, Science & Nature, Music.

Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that also allows you to share your screen with attendees.

Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that enables you to to talk face to face and share your screen with others. Lesson content can be shared in a live video stream with groups ranging from a few people up to hundreds of users. You can use it on the web at meet.google.com, on your Android device and on iOS devices. You can either just jump straight into a Video Meeting or schedule one for a later date and time in Google Calendar.

One of the best features of Hangouts Meet is it’s ability to provide live captions/subtitles which can be turned on by anyone who needs it.

We’ve written up a quick run through of Hangouts Meet and how to get started below.

STUDENTS ARE ASKED TO FOLLOW THIS VIDEO CONFERENCING ETIQUETTE GUIDE TO ENSURE YOU CAN TEACH WITHOUT INTERUPTION.


Starting a video meeting

You can start a new session by opening Hangouts Meet in the web or in the app and clicking Start a new meeting or pressing the Plus + icon.

In both methods, once you’ve set up the meeting, you’ll then be offered the chance to invite people to join you.

Scheduling a video meeting

To schedule a meeting for the future, simply head to Calendar and create an event then click on Add Conferencing and it will automatically create a Hangouts Meet session ready for the set date and time.

You can then invite guests to the event and they’ll all receive the information to join the video call.



Joining a video meeting

Joining a video meeting can be done in a number of different ways depending on how it’s been set up. You can click the link in your calendar appointment, or your meeting text or email. You can type in the meeting code on the Hangouts Web website or even dial in to the meeting on a physical phone.

Calendar Appointment
Email Link
Meeting Code
Phone Dial In

Adding people to a meeting

If you need to add more people to a meeting after the initial setup that is easy to do using one of two methods.

Option 1 – Click the People tab in the top right then Add People and enter their email addresses.

Option 2 – Click the meeting name in the bottom left corner of the screen and copy the joining info so you can then paste that in to your own email to whoever you want.

You can find more information here including how to remove people.

Change your computer’s Video & Audio settings

Meet will pick up your default camera, speaker and microphone which in most cases will be the only ones you have however if you plug in alternative devices to use instead, it should then automatically pick these up instead of any built-in device.

More information can be found here and steps for changing the settings within the mobile apps can be found here.


Sharing your screen

Sharing or ‘Presenting’ your screen is possible on computers and iOS devices but not currently supported on Android devices. On the computer you can opt to share your whole screen or just an individual window whereas on the iOS device you can only share your whole screen.

To present on your computer just look for the Present now button in the bottom right of the meeting window then select if you want to share your entire screen or a window. Sharing just a window will allow you to share just a presentation or document whilst allowing you to continue working on your computer.

More information including how to take over presenting from someone else can be found here.

The TED-Ed project — TED’s education initiative — makes short video lessons worth sharing, aimed at educators and students. Within TED-Ed’s growing library of lessons, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which are collaborations between educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform.

Our very own Director of Humanities, Mark Robinson, has collaborated with TED-Ed to make range of videos:

Workbench hosts a huge range of features. Whether you’re looking for some pre-made lessons on a specific topic or want to find some basic tasks for your lesson, you might want to track your student progress visually or learn code yourself there is a wealth of content across the site. Plus, it’s free for education!

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Kahoot! is a game based classroom response system allowing a full class to play quizzes and take surveys in real time.




Google Arts & Culture is an online platform that allows you to view high-resolution images of artworks from around the world.



The Google Arts & Culture app hosts content from over 1200 museums and archives from across the world with tens of thousands of individual pieces of content including 360 degree videos of places and events, street views of locations like the Taj Mahal or Machu Pichu, or even inside views of the Palace of Versailles for example.

You can look for historical street art or narrow down your search by a specific colour or time.

The Chrome Extension shows you a new piece of art each time you create a new tab in Chrome.

Now with VR and AR, you can walk around museums and other amazing buildings from around the world.

The mobile device app allows you to use VR/AR to view art in a new way, some of the features are listed below along with video examples of how to use them:

  • Art Selfie
    • Take a quick selfie and the app will compare it with thousands of pieces of art from throughout history to find someone who looks like you.
  • Colour Palette
    • Take a photo of an item nearby then the app will search for more art with the same colours, perfect if creating a moodboard based on a specific colour.
  • Pocket Gallery
    • Use AR to walk round already created art exhibits without having to leave the room.
  • Art Projector
    • Use AR to place paintings and artwork infront of you so you can see the true scale of the pieces.

Art Selfie

Colour Palette

What is VR, AR and Google Cardboard?

Pocket Gallery

Art Projector

CoSpaces EDU lets students build their own 3D creations, animate them with code and explore them in Virtual or Augmented Reality.



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