Hangouts

Google "Hangouts" are a free and easy way to do a live group chat, along with audio/video as long as participants' devices have cameras and microphones (almost all laptops and phones/tablets do.) Hangouts is enabled for all users in the crossroadsacademy.org domain. This means that this tool can be used with/by any student in 3rd grade and above, as well as all faculty.

Prerequisites

- All computer participants MUST use the Chrome browser; all phone/tablet participants must have the Hangouts app installed.

- All participants must be logged in using their crossroadsacademy.org user account.

To start a Hangout from a computer (Mac, Windows, or Chromebook)

1. Open Hangouts. In Chrome, go to the app grid and click Hangouts:

If you can't find it, simply open a browser tab to http://hangouts.google.com (and click through the four little intro screens the first time.)

2. Click New Conversation. (If you have used Hangouts before, it will list the people you hung out with most recently below that)

3. Click New group.

4. Name the group. You can re-use this group later, so maybe call it something like "5th grade History", the example in my screenshots was dumb.

5. Add participants. In the box below that, start typing the first few letters of a student's name -- it will auto-complete -- and click their name when it appears:

Repeat for additional participants, and a list will build:

6. Start the chat. When you've got everyone in the list (or just some, you can add others later), click the green checkbox to proceed:

7. Tell students to get ready. If you have not done so already, ask your students to go to hangouts.google.com (or, open the requisite app on their tablet/phone) and be logged in to their crossroadsacademy.org account. In the screenshots below, what the student sees is centered, and what you see is left-justified.

8. Type a greeting, then hit the return key to send it -- this is what will "light up" their Hangouts view:

Your students will then see an invitation from you, like this:

The students need to click that notification, followed by "Accept" (once per Hangout session):

At this point, you can all type to each other:

Live Audio and Video

Follow the steps above first. Then, click the little video camera icon:

Your students will then see a green bar with "Video call from <you>", which they should click:

(The first time only, you and your students will have to click "allow" for access to the camera/microphone:)

What it looks like

The video call will open in a new window. Each participant will see themselves and other participants' faces as little thumbnails at the bottom of their own main view. By default, everyone's large window will automatically focus on whoever is speaking. In this photo, I'm the teacher (see my thumbnail self in the lower right), and the owl is Rei, and Rei is speaking, so everyone's main view would show her face:

So it can get chaotic if everyone is trying to talk at once, or if there's a lot of background noise. Which brings us to...

Muting

Participants can mute themselves by clicking the microphone icon on the left, and participants can turn off their camera (but still do audio) by clicking the video camera icon on the right:

The middle red button "hangs up" and disconnects them from the Hangout (they can reconnect if they hit that by accident.)

Adding more participants

To add someone to the text chat, click the little person icon with the "1" next to it:

Then click Add people and start typing name(s):

To add someone during a video call, mouse over your main view and some icons will appear in the upper right -- click the +person icon, and type names/emails in the box that appears.

You can have up to 150 people in a Hangout (not that we'd recommend that many!)

Sharing your screen

Mouse over your main view to the three icons in the upper right, then click the three little dots:

Choose "Share screen":

Then, MINIMIZE your video window, or drag it out of the way -- otherwise this can turn into a hall of mirrors -- and open or bring to the front the document/picture/website you want to show them. When you're finished, go back to your video window and click the red "stop sharing" button at the bottom. (That said, remember, you can always upload and share a document/photo/etc. to your students via Google Drive, so you only need to use screen sharing for brief views or "live demo"-type things.)

Remember, they can see your WHOLE screen when you're screen sharing, so be mindful of things like having the gradebook open, or a paused Netflix movie, etc.

Reusing a Hangout

If you want to start a hangout with the same people as before, go to hangouts.google.com and instead of "New group", choose the old one from your history:

That will open the chat window, then you can click the video icon to start a video call.

Troubleshooting

Mouse over your main view to the three icons in the upper right, then click the gear icon:

That will bring up a window along these lines:

So if you have a headset or something and your computer's using the speakers, you can switch it here, and you can test your audio/microphone/etc. As with anything, if you get stuck, email helpdesk@crossroadsacademy.org.