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April 1st is right around the corner and one thing is inevitable. Pranks will happen. Some light-hearted fun around the office can be a good thing when done in good taste and frankly, sometimes it’s just good to have a laugh.
If you’re an educator, what better time to have a little fun with your students? April Fool’s Day is a perfect opportunity to pull a few pranks on your kids and maybe even learn a few tricks in the process.
Our good friend John R. Sowash has shared with us a list of harmless but hilarious pranks you can pull on your students and co-workers using a Chromebook. So, without further ado, here’s a couple pointers from John’s Chromebook Prank Guide for Teachers.
Google Gravity
This one is great to get a fellow teacher with or, if you happen to be buddies with your IT admin, you can prank the masses. Google Gravity is a Google homepage spoof that collapses into a pile as soon as the mouse is moves. If you can access an individual’s Chromebook, head to Settings>Advanced settings>On startup and select “open a specific page or set of pages.”
From there click “set pages” and add this url. https://goo.gl/zlCsbG Close the settings and the browser and wait. For other devices with the Chrome browser simply follow Chrome settings>Appearance>Default homepage link and add the link above.
Prank Wallpaper
This one requires you to have someone on the inside in your IT department. Unless you are and admin, in which case this prank will be a breeze. Inside the Chrome Management Console you can push wallpapers to Chrome devices. If you’ve not done this before check out how here. I’ll wait. Ok, ready? Here’s a couple ideas to catch your students off guard.
Broken Screen-Find a high-res wallpaper of a shattered display and push it to a device or every device depending on how mischievous you’re feeling.
iPad/Windows– I love this one. Find an image that looks like a Windows desktop or iPad screen and throw that bad boy up there. That would put me in panic mode for sure.
Prying Eyes-Get a good picture of a staff member peering suspiciously from a familiar locale and have it front and center to startle an unsuspecting user.
Nope
Robby covered this one last week but it’s worth another quick mention. Fake a phone call with one click on this extension. Not only will you be able to receive a call, the instructions from the other end will walk you through a hilarious set of reactions that will have onlookers thinking something drastic has happened.
For a full list of April Fool’s pranks check out John’s site, the ElectricEducator. While you’re there sign up for news and updates from the world of Education Technology.
You can also find his book, The Chromebook Classroom, at the link below. Everything you need to know about the use, deployment and management of Chrome devices in today’s classroom.
