Classroom manual
River of Glory · Revision 26 September 2026
Your classroom computer
This computer is set up for one thing: running your room. It switches itself on into the classroom, and there is nothing on it to break.
You do not need a password. You do not need to sign in. You do not need to shut it down at the end — leave it on.
The bar along the bottom
Everything you need is on the bar at the bottom of the screen.
The buttons in the middle are the things you can open. Which ones are there depends on what your room is set up for, so your bar may have fewer buttons than another room's.
The right-hand end shows the network, the volume, any messages and the clock.
To open something, click its button once. To come back to it later, click the same button again.
The Browser
The Browser button opens the web: YouTube, a song, a video clip, a website a lesson sends you to.
Using it
- Click Browser on the bar.
- Type where you want to go in the bar at the top, or click Home to go back to YouTube.
The room stays signed in to YouTube, so you do not have to.
Playing a video on the television
Click the full-screen button in the corner of the video, the same as you would at home. Press Esc to come back out of full screen.
When you have finished
Leave it open, or close the window. The next person can open it again from the bar.
Anything you sign in to yourself — a personal account, an email — sign out of before you leave. The computer is shared.
Sound and volume
Sound goes to the television when one is connected, and to the computer's own speakers when one is not. You do not have to choose.
Changing the volume
Use the volume keys on the keyboard, or click the speaker at the right-hand end of the bar and drag the slider.
A large volume bar appears on the screen while you are changing it, so you can see it from across the room.
If there is no sound
- Check the volume on the television as well as on the computer. Both have to be up.
- Check the television is showing this computer, and not something else plugged into it.
- If the television was switched on after the computer, the sound may still be going to the computer's own speakers. Turn the volume down and back up once; that is enough to move it across.
If none of that works, tell the office. Do not unplug anything.
Presentations
Presentations holds the slides for your sessions. You download a presentation in the browser once, and from then on it is on this screen, ready to show on the television.
Getting a presentation onto the computer
- Click Browser and go to wherever the presentation is — your email, a shared folder, wherever it was sent to you.
- Download it the way you normally would.
- Wait until the download has finished.
That is all. It appears in Presentations by itself a few seconds later. You do not have to save it anywhere special, move it, or open it.
PowerPoint files and PDF files both work.
Your download stays in the browser exactly as it was. Nothing here changes it, moves it or deletes it.
Opening the library
Click Presentations on the bar.
Each session is a card with its name and a picture of one of its slides. Find tonight's by looking at the picture.
If a session has only just been downloaded, its card says it is being got ready. It will be ready in a moment.
Quick Look — checking the slides first
Quick Look lets you read through a session before you show it to anybody.
- Next and Previous move through the slides.
- Back to Presentations returns to the library.
- Present starts the slideshow straight away.
Looking through a session in Quick Look does not count as having presented it.
Changing the picture on the card
The first slide of a session is often the same opening slide as every other session, which makes the cards hard to tell apart. Use the slide that names the session instead — usually the second one.
- Click Quick Look.
- Press Next until you reach the slide you want.
- Click Use this slide as the picture.
The card changes straight away, and stays that way — after you close the library, and after the computer is switched off and on again.
Choosing the picture does not change where the slideshow starts. It always starts at the first slide.
Showing a presentation
Click Present, on the card or inside Quick Look.
The slides fill the whole screen. Nothing else is on it.
| To do this | Press |
|---|---|
| Next slide | Space, the right arrow, the down arrow or Page Down |
| Previous slide | The left arrow, the up arrow or Page Up |
| First slide | Home |
| Last slide | End |
| Finish | Esc |
A presentation remote works too — the forward and back buttons on the clicker are the same as Page Down and Page Up.
Finishing
Press Esc.
You come straight back to the library. Going past the last slide does the same thing.
Removing a presentation
Click Remove on its card, and confirm.
That takes it off this screen. Your download in the browser is not touched, so you can always get it back by downloading it again.
Presentations you no longer need
The computer tidies up after itself, so the library does not slowly fill up with old sessions.
A session you have shown is kept for a month after the last time you showed it. Showing it again starts that month over.
A session you downloaded but never showed is kept for six months.
You do not have to do anything about this, and nothing disappears while you are using it.
If a presentation will not open
Its card says so, and offers only Remove. Usually the file did not download properly.
Download it again. Your original download is still there either way.
Wonder Ink
Wonder Ink opens the lesson. It is its own application, not the browser, and it opens straight into the lesson site.
Using it
- Click Wonder Ink on the bar.
- Sign in with your Wonder Ink account.
A lesson often opens several tabs — the lesson, its video, an activity. They appear in a row across the top. Click a tab to move between them, and the × on a tab to close it.
There is no address bar, on purpose. Wonder Ink can take you anywhere the lesson needs to go.
Making the lesson bigger or smaller
Press Ctrl and + to make the lesson bigger, Ctrl and − to make it smaller, and Ctrl and 0 to go back to normal. You can also right-click the lesson and choose Make the lesson bigger. When several tabs are open, the − 100% + buttons at the top right do the same.
The size applies to every tab and is remembered next time.
Printing
Press Ctrl and P, click Print at the top right, or right-click and choose Print page…. You will see the pages exactly as they will print.
- Choose Only some pages to print, for example, `2` or `1-3`.
- Set Copies for the number of children.
- Choose Black and white to save color ink. The preview turns grey, so you see what will come out; choose Color to go back.
Printing a picture from the lesson. Right-click the picture and choose Print image…. Only that picture prints, not the page around it. This works for pictures you cannot open by themselves.
In the preview for a picture, also under Picture: choose its Size (for example 50%), click one of the nine Position squares to put it in a corner or the middle, and choose Paper upright or sideways. The preview changes as you choose, and shows exactly what will print. Fill the whole page makes it cover the paper but cuts off the edges. A picture that is open in a tab by itself prints the same way.
If Wonder Ink says a picture *could not be taken from the page*, it had not finished loading: close the preview and try again, or choose Print page… to print the whole page instead.
Click Print. Wonder Ink says when the printer has it and goes back to the lesson. Cancel prints nothing.
Worksheets and colouring pages
Click the worksheet link in the lesson. It opens in a new tab, ready to read or print. Any other link in a lesson — a slide, a picture, a video — also opens in a new tab with one click, and Wonder Ink shows it straight away; the lesson stays open in its own tab. A worksheet's own − and + at the top of the page make it bigger or smaller.
Worksheets you download are kept separately from everything else on the computer, so they never get mixed up with anything.
If Wonder Ink closes by accident
Open it again. If you used it in the last two hours, your recent tabs come back — the slides, pictures and worksheets you had open, in the same order. Wonder Ink's own lesson tab comes back at the sign-in page: sign in again and open your lesson.
Your password is never kept. After two hours that nobody has used Wonder Ink, it forgets the tabs and the next person starts with a fresh Wonder Ink.
When you have finished
Close Wonder Ink at the end of your session. Closing it signs you out, so the next teacher in this room starts with their own account and not yours. Your recent tabs are kept for two hours in case you need them again, but never your sign-in.
Parent Call
Parent Call asks the sanctuary to fetch a child's grown-up, without you leaving the room.
Using it
- Click Parent Call, in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
- Type the child's name.
- Click Send.
The card tells you what is happening. Sent to sanctuary means somebody there has it.
What it does and does not promise
Sent to sanctuary means the message arrived. It does not mean it has been read out yet — somebody there decides when.
If it cannot reach the sanctuary it says so plainly. It will never tell you a call went through when it did not.
If that happens, send somebody.
Playing a DVD
Playing a disc
- Put the disc in the drive.
- Wait for DVD Ready to appear.
- Click DVD on the bar.
The disc fills the screen and plays on the television. Discs never start on their own — it always takes a button press.
While it is playing
Move the mouse to the very bottom of the screen and a row of controls slides up: previous chapter, play and pause, next chapter, the disc menu, eject, and close.
Space also plays and pauses, and the arrow keys move around the disc menu.
Finishing
Click ✕ on that row to stop, or ⏏ to stop and eject the disc.
Take the disc with you.
Printing
Printing goes to the church printer. There is nothing to choose and nothing to set up.
Printing something
- Press Ctrl+P, or use the Print button on the page you are looking at.
- Check the number of copies.
- Click Print.
If nothing comes out
The printer may be off, out of paper, or somebody else's job may be ahead of yours. Your job waits in the queue and prints when the printer is ready again — you do not need to send it twice.
Sending it again two or three times is how ten copies of the same worksheet appear later.
If something goes wrong
Almost nothing here needs a technical person, and nothing you can do from the keyboard will break the computer.
The screen is black
Move the mouse or press a key. If it stays black, check the television is on and showing this computer.
A window will not close
Click its button on the bar to bring it back, and close it normally.
The bar has gone
Wait a few seconds; it puts itself back.
If it does not, switch the computer off at the power button, wait ten seconds, and switch it on again. It comes back to the same screen it always does.
Something asks for a password
Nothing a teacher needs to do asks for a password. If a password box appears, you have reached something you did not mean to — press Esc or click Cancel, and carry on.
It is still wrong
Tell the office, and say which room and what you were doing when it happened. That second part is the one that saves everybody time.