Chromebook for Seniors: Getting Started With Chrome OS

Introduction

Chromebooks are perfect for Seniors. Hopefully you are at a state in your life where the Internet helps you but doesn’t define you.

You don’t need to have a powerhouse computer that can have 200 spreadsheets running at the same time or watching a movie while you have 100 other apps open!

You just want a computer that lets you check up on things, and maybe stream a movie or to. In a word: something simple.

If that sounds like you, then all you have to do is figure out how to use a Chromebook! Fortunately, if you’ve ever used the Internet, then that part will come pretty easy.

This book will walk you through what you need to know so you can be up and running in no time.

Ready? Let’s get started!

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Tell Me About Accessibility

ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES

We are going to do things a little backwards. Normally, I start these books with a crash course of features, but for this book, I’m going to cover accessibility features first. Accessibility features enhance the experience for users who might have trouble seeing, hearing, or just don't know how fast the mouse pad feels.

Why?

Because there’s a lot of features that might be helpful to you as you learn--such as text to speech.

To get started, open up Chrome.

It’s this button on the bottom of your screen:

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Once it’s open, look to the right hand side just below the X. See the three dots? Click that.

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That brings up a drop down menu. You’ll want to go to the bottom to the Settings option. Click that when you get there.



This brings up the settings menu. What you want is the three lines on the left hand side. When you click that, it will bring up another menu. 



Go all the way to the bottom and click advanced. Don’t worry! This won’t be advanced! And we are going to come back to cover the settings menu thoroughly once we go over some other parts of the computer you need to know.



Next, click on Accessibility.



This brings up the accessibility menu. See! Doesn’t look too complicated does it?!



The bottom part we’ll cover letter. That’s just about resetting everything, which you don’t want to do right now--probably never. The part we want to click next is Manage accessibility features.



This brings up a whole slew of features. For the most part, these will all be toggles--which means you click it to turn it on and click it again to turn it off. 

The first is Text-to-Speech. Text-to-Speech will read back text (like emails and documents) to you. The first two options turn it on and the last lets you edit things like how loud it is.



Next is display. This lets you turn on high contrast if you’re having a hard time seeing your screen; you can also make everything bigger by turning on the zoom.



Next up is keyboard settings. If you are not a fan of typing, then you’ll love this area--one of the options is dictation--or speak to type; say what you want and it will appear on your screen. 



If you aren’t a fan of the touchpad, you aren’t alone. A lot of people have difficulty getting used to it. This can adjust the size you see on the screen--so it’s easier to find. You can also turn on highlighting, which means it appears slightly highlighted on your screen. The last setting lets you change the overall speed and other settings--so if it’s too quick when you drag your finger on it, you can adjust the responsiveness.



Finally, the Audio is pretty straightforward. It changes the sound from the stereo (surround sound) to mono (same sound on all speakers); you can also pick if you want sound at startup.