What’s this deal about Google Cast for Education?
Imagine this. You have a class of students working on their projects or preparing a presentation on their Chromebooks. As a teacher, you will have your device connected to a projector for the class to see. You want to showcase their work to the rest of the class but it becomes a hassle since they would need to share their work with you. With Google Cast for Education, you can get your students to cast their tabs or even their desktop to you and you can present that to the rest of the class.
I’m sold. Where do I begin?
Google Cast for Education runs as an extension in your Chrome browser. Follow the steps below and you should get Cast for Education up and running in no time.
Open up your Chrome Browser
Go to Chrome Web Store (https://chrome.google.com/webstore)
Search for Google Cast for Education
Click on the ADD TO CHROME button of the Google Cast for Education
In the popup Dialog, just click on the Add Extension button
That’s it. You now have Google Cast for Education extension installed. Easy peasy.
Great, so how do I start using it?
Now that you have Google Cast for Education installed, you can start using it. There are two parts or roles to casting. The teacher who receives the request to cast and the student who sends the request to cast.
To start receiving cast requests, click on the green Google Cast for Education extension that you can find on your browser’s toolbar, located on the top right corner beside your address bar.
A new window will pop up with the option to set the following options:
Receiver name - The name of the receiver, usually a classroom (e.g Classroom 101)
Automatically full screen new presentation sessions - If checked, all accepted casts will be presented full screen.
Automatically send usage statistics to Google - If checked, you will send anonymous usage information with Google.
Display background images from the web - This option is to make the cast a bit more presentable, not a priority though. You will need to provide the URL of the image for this option.
In the next popup, you will decide who to grant casting access to. Individual email addresses, group email addresses and classrooms are available for invitation. There are two levels of access that you can grant:
Can request - You can accept or decline these requests to cast.
Can present - The person will be able to present without needing an approval from you.
If you choose to grant access to a class, you can do so for classrooms that you are a teacher/co-teacher of. You can set it such that teachers of the classroom can present without having the need to request.
That’s done. All you have to do now is to wait for a cast request to come in and approve.
Once this is setup is done, students can make that request to cast their screens by choosing the registered room.
The image below shows the dialog popup that students will see when they try to cast. They just need to click on the name of the class to start casting.
The image below shows a different dialog popup when the request to cast is approved. Students can then end their casts by clicking on the STOP button.
