Introducing students to the extension (4 min read)

Of course, it goes without saying that you understand your students best, so feel free to customize your introduction. The following are some tips and tricks that we've heard from fellow teachers about how to make introducing your students to the structal extension go smoothly.

Send the link to download the extension in your LMS

This link is the most straightforward way to get your students to install the extension.

We suggest a message/announcement like the following in your LMS:

Today we're going to download an app onto our computers that is going to help make reading easier and help you learn more when you read.

First, go to this link to sign up for Structal: https://structal.ai/students/sign_up

Next, go to this link to download the extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/structal/jdoccfgelddlaopeahgpoffmafnmhpdo?hl=en&authuser=0

If you need additional help see this page:https://support.structal.ai/student-install-chrome-extension/

When you get to that page, click the blue button that says "Add to Chrome"

Feel free to include the image below in your announcement if it's helpful.

Send students the article that shows them how to use the extension

We built a student-friendly article that shows how to use the Chrome Extension. There are many moving images (GIFs) in the article and as few words as possible (yeah, my students weren't big on reading directions either).

Walk through the extension with your students (~5 minutes)

We know that most teachers would probably do this anyways, but it bears repeating: doing a quick mini-lesson for your students on how to use the extension is the most effective way to teach them about it. This mini-lesson usually takes teachers between 5 and 10 minutes of class time.

Some bullet points of what to emphasize:

• Click the yellow bubble with the "S" to get help with reading an article
• Hover over the colored highlights to see help
• Click on any word in the article to get a definition, see a translation, or hear it read aloud
• Highlight more of the text (e.g. a phrase, sentence, or paragraph) to hear it read aloud in English or your home language

Make sure students know they can use it on anything they read in Google Chrome

For whatever reason, there are students who get shy about using the extension! Some have told us that they're not sure if they can only use it on certain sites.

Make sure that you tell students they can use structal to get support on almost any website and any PDF they read, even for other classes. There's also a way to use it with Google Docs and Google Slides!

Interested in learning more specifics about where structal works? Check out this article.