“The arrow is giant!”

“My screen turned black!”

“Everything is so big!”

“I THINK MY CHROMEBOOK IS BECOMING SELF-AWARE!”

All of the above are actual comments from my second graders. Usually my panicked students come to me with these issues right when I am in the middle of delivering small group instruction or trying to progress monitor students (aka the most inconvenient times to be interrupted).

ME: Yes, buddy, I see your Chromebook is talking to you. What did you do right before it started talking?

THEM: …I don’t know.

Actual picture of my super-professional reaction.

Troubleshooting my students’ Chromebook issues became a lot easier once I discovered the Accessibility menu. If a student’s Chromebook is doing something funky out of the blue, nine times out of ten it is because the student accidentally hit an option on the Accessibility menu. Never fear! It is an easy fix.

Click on the “status tray” in the lower right hand corner. Click on “Accessibility” (look for an icon of a person). If it does not show that option on the main page, then you will find it under advanced settings.

Once you click on “Accessibility,” a whole menu of options will come up. Look for a green check mark and deselect that option. The student’s Chromebook should immediately go back to normal.

If you notice that a certain student is turning on or off these accessibility options a lot, you can remove the “Accessibility” button from the student’s main menu. From the “Settings” page, simply scroll down to “Accessibility” and click the toggle that says “Always show accessibility options in the system menu.”

Let’s face it, folks. Giant cursors, magnified screens, and inverted colors are always going to mysteriously pop up right in the middle of something super important. My hope is that this quick tip will help you get everyone back to work without causing too much of a disruption.