The classroom manual

Shows the time and today's date in a panel big enough to read from the back row.

• Nothing to set up. Resize it larger for a projector.
• The date follows your Date system setting, so it can show the lunar date too.

A countdown for activities: five minutes for the warm-up, two for a pair discussion.

• Add time with the +1m and +5m buttons, then press Start.
• Reset clears the clock and the time you had loaded, so Start does nothing until you add time again — no accidental restart of the last activity.
• It announces time is up when it reaches zero.

Counts up, for races, timed readings and anything where you want splits.

• Start, then Lap records a split while it keeps running.
• Each lap shows its own time and the running total, newest at the top. Reset clears the laps with it.

A silent noise signal: green for talk freely, amber for quiet voices, red for silence.

• Tap a light to change it. Leave it on screen and point rather than raising your voice.

Listens through the microphone and shows how loud the room is.

• Click to enable it and allow microphone access when the browser asks. If Chrome shows no prompt on the New Tab page, click Open microphone setup, allow the microphone on that page, then come back and click enable again. You only do this once.
• It needs a secure page — the extension, https, or localhost. From a plain file it can't ask for the microphone.
• Pick how the level is shown with the three small buttons at the top: a round colour meter, a vertical bar, or a horizontal bar. Green is quiet, yellow is OK and red is too loud. The widget remembers your choice.
• The meter pegs at the highest level it hears and holds it for 3 seconds (a “Peak hold” tag shows while it does), so a short shout doesn’t flash past unnoticed. If something louder comes, the 3 seconds start again. Then the meter settles back to the current level.
• Under the meter, Noise over time graphs the whole session as a line, with the green, yellow and red zones behind it. The graph shows the real level, not the held one, and long sessions squeeze together without losing the loud moments. It stays if you close and reopen the widget; press Clear graph to start fresh. Drag the widget’s corner to make the graph bigger.
• It is an approximate reading from a laptop microphone, not a calibrated sound meter. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere — the graph exists only on your screen and is gone when you reload the page.

Days remaining until a date that matters — an exam, a field trip, the end of term.

• Set a label and a date. It counts down daily and says so when the day arrives.

Mark who's here, by date.

• Tap each student to cycle their mark for the day. A summary line keeps the count.
• Export day (.csv) downloads that day's register for your own records or your school system.

Splits the class into random groups on the spot.

• Choose how many groups you want, or how many students per group, then Shuffle.
• Shuffle again for a different arrangement — useful when the first one puts the wrong two together.

Who is out of the room, where they went, and for how long.

• Pick a student, type a destination and send them out. The panel shows how long they have been gone.
• Press Return when they come back. The log keeps the day's trips until you clear it.

A short written report on one student, sent to their parents in ParentDeck.

• Choose the student from your Cloud Class list (connect Cloud Class first, or the list will be empty). Fill in Skills, Things to improve, Strengths and Next Learning Focus, and give an overall score out of 10.
• Press Send to ParentDeck. Unlike Assignments, a report goes only to that one student’s family, not the whole class.
• Pick weekly, bi-weekly or monthly and a start date to put reminders on your Calendar (marked with 📈) for the next reports. Nothing is sent automatically — the reminders are there to bring you back and write each one.
• Deleting a report removes its Calendar reminders, but parents who already received it will still see it.

A quick note to a student’s parents — a smiley or a frowny face and a few words — with a read receipt, so you can see when it has been opened. Find it in the Cloud classroom group of the app tray.

• Connect Cloud Class first (Notes Home asks you to if you haven’t). In Cloud Class, the ✉️ button on a student’s row is a shortcut: it opens Notes Home with that student already ticked. Type the name you want parents to see in Sign notes as (for example “Ms. Linh”) — you only need to do this once. Parents see your class name and that name.
• Tick one or more students, pick 🙂 or 🙁, and write your note (up to 500 characters). A smiley can go with no words at all; a frowny needs a few words so the parent knows what happened. Press Send note.
• If you tick several students, each family gets its own private copy. Nobody can see another family’s note, and students never see notes at all.
• Under Sent notes, each note shows 📨 Sent until a parent opens it in ParentDeck, then ✅ Read with the time. If a child has two parents, it counts as read as soon as either one opens it.
• Sent the wrong one? The 🗑️ button takes a note back — but only while it is still unread. Once a parent has opened it, it stays; send a short follow-up note instead.
• Two students with the same name show a ⚠️ marker in the list. Check you have ticked the right one before you send — a note goes to that student’s family only.
• Removing a student from Cloud Class also deletes the notes you sent about them.

See what your students are doing in StudentDeck, across the whole class. Find it in the Cloud classroom group of the app tray; it needs Cloud Class to be connected.

• This week — how many students were active, and the class totals for reading minutes, focus sessions, games, idioms, words saved and cards reviewed.
• Students — each student’s 🔥 streak, ✅ homework done out of assigned, when they were last active, and 📖 reading this week. Students who haven’t been active for 3 or more days are listed first, so they are easy to spot.
• Homework completion — for each assignment, how many students have ticked it off, with a bar.
• Recent points — the latest awards, including when a student spends points on a reward (🎁), with the reward named. If a student redeems something while this widget is open, you get a pop-up, so a drop in points always has a visible reason.
• The same 🔥 / ✅ / last-active line also appears under each student in the Cloud Class roster.
• Journal entries stay private on the student’s own device and are never shown here. These numbers are reported by each student’s own device — treat them as a guide, not a score.

A full-screen whiteboard for explaining things as you go, with a mind map mode and a flowchart mode. Everything works on the same page, so you can draw an arrow by hand over a mind map.

• The tool column has Select, Pan, Pen, Highlighter, Eraser, Text and Picture. Pick a colour from the ten swatches (or the rainbow circle for any colour) and a size from the five dots along the bottom. Keys: V, P, H, E, T, S (shapes), C (connector); hold Space and drag to move around; Ctrl + scroll or the + and − buttons to zoom; 1 fits everything on screen, 0 goes back to 100%.
• Eraser: by default it rubs out just the part of a stroke it touches; choose Erase whole strokes in the bar along the bottom to remove a stroke in one touch. A stylus with an eraser end erases when you flip it over.
• Pictures: the Picture button adds a picture from this computer or from your Files widget. You can also paste a picture (Ctrl+V) or drag one onto the board. Drag its corner handle to resize it; the shape stays in proportion.
• Math tools (the ruler button in the tool column): a number line, a ruler (cm or inches), a protractor, a fraction bar and a table / grid. Drag one to move it; the round handle above a ruler, protractor or number line turns it (hold Shift to snap to 15°); the square corner handle changes its size. A pen stroke that starts on the top edge of a ruler runs perfectly straight along it. Press Enter or the Properties button to change a tool: the number line's start, end and step; the ruler's unit and length; how many parts a fraction bar has (double-click a part to shade it); a table's rows, columns, column headings and cell numbering.
• Starter templates (the four-squares button at the top right): T-chart, Venn diagram, KWL chart, story map, place value chart, 100 chart, multiplication table, fraction wall, a number line from 0 to 10, a coordinate plane and handwriting lines. Each lands on the page ready to use; everything can be moved, resized or edited.
• Shapes: line, arrow, rectangle, ellipse and diamond; flowcharts also have Process, Start / end and Sticky note. Drag to draw one, then type to label it. Hold Shift for a perfect square, circle or 45° line. Tick Fill shapes for a tinted inside.
• Mind map: Double-click for a central topic, then Tab adds a branch and Enter adds one beside it. Branches take their own colour and tidy themselves; the small circle by a branch hides or shows what is below it. Tidy layout puts everything back in order, and Outline lets you copy the map as an indented list or turn a pasted list into a map.
• Flowchart: draw shapes, choose the connector and drag from one shape to another. Connectors follow the shapes when you move them. Double-click a connector to label it (for example Yes or No).
• Backgrounds (the grid button at the top): whiteboard, blackboard, grid, lined paper, three-line handwriting paper, graph paper, coordinate axes for maths, and dots. Pages: use ◀ ▶ and + at the top to run a lesson as several pages. A board can have many pages, and you can keep many boards.
• Save page as picture (the ⋯ menu) downloads a PNG; Save all pages as PDF makes one PDF with a page for each board page. Save board as a file and Open a board file move a whole board between computers. Boards save themselves on this computer as you work; Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo changes on the page you are on.
• Hide the toolbars (F) gives you the largest possible board for the projector; the round button in the corner brings them back.

Fill in the essentials of a lesson once: get your lesson plan document ready to finish, and put the lesson on the calendar.

• Type the topic, date, start time and length, then your name, subject and class. Objectives, materials and the minutes for each phase are optional — open the two collapsible sections to add them.
• Open in Word downloads a copy of your Universal Lesson Planner template with all of that already filled in. Open it from your Downloads folder or the browser's download bar — a web page can't start Word for you.
• Open in Google Docs copies the same plan and opens a new, titled Google Doc. Press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) in the new document to drop it in. You need to be signed in to Google. If the paste doesn't look right, use Open in Word instead, upload that file to Google Drive and choose Open with → Google Docs.
• Also save to the calendar is on by default, and adds the lesson to the Calendar widget: date, start time, length, an optional reminder, and a summary in the notes. Save to calendar does only that, without opening a document.
• Save again after a change and the same calendar entry is updated, not duplicated. The line under the buttons turns amber when the form has moved on from what the calendar holds.
• A lesson needs a topic before it can go on the calendar; opening the document never does.
• New lesson clears the topic and content but keeps your name, subject, class, start time and length for the next one. Each class keeps its own planner.

The lesson on the wall: the schedule, today's objective, and the Do Now.

• Type into the three boxes. It saves as you go, and each class keeps its own.
• Put it up as students walk in so nobody asks what they should be doing.

Multi-step instructions shown one step at a time, so students aren't reading ahead.

• Give it a title, add your steps, then click Done editing.
• Next and Previous move through them, with a step counter. Click Edit to change them again.
• The text automatically grows or shrinks to fill the window — drag the corner to make it bigger for the back of the room.
• Each step can show a Vietnamese translation under the English. Steps are translated automatically when you add them (or press the globe button on a step, or “Translate all”). Machine translation isn’t perfect, so you can edit the Vietnamese yourself. The 🇻🇳 button on the display turns Vietnamese on and off.
• The title gets a Vietnamese line too. Steps are numbered for you (1, 2, 3…), so you don’t need to type the numbers.
• Use the “All steps” / “One at a time” button to show every step on screen at once, or step through them with Next and Previous.

The lesson's plan as tickable items — or a class routine you run every day.

• Type an item and press Add. Tick items off as you go; ticks are saved.
• Items stay until you remove them, so a daily routine can live here permanently.

Notices that stay on the board: homework due, a room change, a reminder for Friday.

• Write a notice and post it. Pin the important one to keep it at the top.
• Notices can be given an expiry so they disappear on their own, or left with none.

A month view with your own events and reminders.

• Click a date to add an event with a time, notes and a reminder.
• Add to Google opens the event prefilled in Google Calendar if you keep your real diary there.
• Import .ics brings events in from Google Calendar or your school system: export the calendar there, then add the file here.
• Turn on notifications to be reminded while the tab is open.

Turns a link into a QR code big enough for the class to scan off the screen.

• Paste a link or any text and click Generate. Download saves the image for a worksheet or slide.
• The code is made on this device — nothing is sent anywhere.

A show-of-hands vote with a question and as many options as you need.

• Open Manage to write the question and the options.
• Tap an option once per raised hand; bars grow as you count. Reset votes clears the tally but keeps the question.

The end-of-lesson temperature check: got it, almost, need help.

• Type the question, then tap a button once per raised hand.
• Reset clears the counts for the next class.

Team points, for anything from vocabulary races to good behaviour.

• Rename the teams by typing over them. Plus and minus adjust the score; Reset zeroes everyone.
• The Classroom Word Wheel and Spelling Bee Showdown games can send their scores straight into this widget.

A rolled die on the big screen, for picking numbers, turns or questions.

• Click Roll. Good for choosing a question number without anyone arguing.

A reading timer that keeps a record of who read and for how long.

• Set the target minutes, pick a student, and start. It tells you when the time is up.
• Each finished session is added to the log, which you can clear whenever you like.

Your lesson files — PDFs, slides, documents, images — one click away during the lesson.

• Click Browse and pick files from your computer. The arrow button (↗) opens a file in a new tab.
• Show full screen. Click a PDF’s name (or the expand button) and it fills the screen under the top bar. Close it with Close document in the bar at the top of the document; the small arrow hides that bar for a bigger page.
• Google links. Paste a Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms or Drive link, give it a name if you like, and press Add Google link. It then shows full screen the same way, as a read-only view; Edit in Google opens the editor in a new tab. You need to be signed in to Google in this browser, and the document must be shared with you. If it doesn’t appear, use Open in tab.
• Word, PowerPoint and Excel files (Pro). Click one and TeachersDeck converts it, once, to a Google Doc, Slides or Sheet in a TeachersDeck Converted folder in your own Google Drive, then shows it full screen. The first time, Google asks you to allow access to the files TeachersDeck creates (only those, not the rest of your Drive). Opening the same file again is instant. Re-convert replaces the Google copy after you change the original. In Settings, Google documents can delete the Google copy when you close a document, or delete all converted files (they go to your Drive trash). If it can’t convert (offline, school account blocked, file too big), it says why and offers Open the original in a tab. The arrow button always opens the original in a tab.
• Keep a widget on top of the document. While a document is full screen, widgets you had open are behind it. Click the pin in a widget’s title bar, or tick it in the Widgets menu in the document bar, and the clock, timer, stopwatch, noise meter or any other widget stays on top of the page. Widgets you open while a document is showing are pinned automatically. Pinned widgets stay pinned next time.
• Files live inside this browser on this computer. Keep your originals where they are. A pasted Google link saves only the link, not the document.

Ready-made classroom games, plus any HTML game you add yourself.

• Built-in games ship in the games folder and are there however you open the app: as the extension, from a web server, or by opening index.html straight from the folder. Right now there are two: Classroom Word Wheel and Spelling Bee Showdown. Tap the small ? on a tile for how to play.
• My games takes any single-file HTML game via Browse.
• Games written in Java or Python need converting to HTML and JavaScript before they will run here.

Background music for group work, from your own files or a streaming link.

• My files plays audio you add from your computer.
• Stream takes a direct audio link. YouTube links open in a new tab, because YouTube blocks embedded playback for many videos.
• Spotify opens your playlist in Spotify rather than playing it here — in-app playback would need a Premium account and a registered Spotify app.

Video clips for the lesson, from your files or from YouTube.

• My files plays video you add from your computer, full width on the projector.
• YouTube links open in a new tab for the same reason as above — it always works, embedding often doesn't.

Your own sound effects on buttons: a chime for tidy-up, a fanfare for a right answer.

• Add audio clips with Browse. Each becomes a button you tap to play.
• One volume slider covers them all, and Stop cuts a clip short.

Reads text aloud in the voice of the interface language, at a speed you set.

• Paste or type the text and press Play. The speed slider slows it down for listening practice.
• It uses the voices your browser already has. If your browser has none, the widget says so.

Discussion prompts on a card, sorted by difficulty.

• Choose easy, medium, hard or all, then Next card.
• Useful for the last five minutes, or as a warm-up while stragglers arrive.

One English idiom a day, with its meaning and an example sentence.

• It changes by date on its own. Shuffle shows another; Back to today returns to the day's idiom.

Grammar rules and examples on the board, so you don't have to write them out.

• Pick a topic from the list to show its rule and examples.

Length, weight, temperature and currency, converted on the screen.

• Pick a category, type a number, read the result.
• Currency uses approximate fixed rates, not live ones — fine for classroom estimates, not for anything that matters financially.