Going Incognito in Chrome

Did you know that Google Chrome allows you to view websites privately? If you open an "incognito window" the sites you view will not be associated with the account that is logged into Chrome. While there are a few reasons that people may use this at home, there are even better reasons to use it at school.

First lets talk about logging into Chrome v logging into Google. Each teacher (and student) has a Google account. In Westerville, these are the 'westerville.k12.oh.us' or the '@studentswcsoh.org' accounts that are used to access Google Drive and the documents stored there. These accounts can be used on any browser (i.e. Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer - although you should probably not use Internet Explorer since the company has stopped supporting it). When www.google.com is opened in any browser, there is an option to log in with a Google account. This gives a person access to the items saved in Drive, and all of the documents associated with that account. This is different than logging into Chrome.

When a person is logged into the Chrome Browser, all of the bookmarks, extensions and Chrome apps associated with that account can be accessed. Typically a person logs into both Chrome and Google at the same time. When another person wants to access their Drive, the first person has to completely log out of Google. Often times a student asks a teacher for help with something and it helps to see what they are looking at.

Instead of logging the teacher out of Google completely and then logging a student in to view their account, open an Incognito window to allow the student to log into their Google account without accessing the teacher's information. The person logged into Chrome will still have the bookmarks and extensions available, but the Google account of the new user is now available. This quickly and easily allows a teacher to see what the student is viewing when logged in to be able to help answer questions about work, and then when the window is closed, the teacher is still logged in to their account.

Incognito mode is a great way to quickly open a browser page without the need to log out of your own account information.

Here is a quick video on how to open an Incognito window.

Here is a slightly more in depth video about how to properly use Incognito windows.

You can read about some general tips on how to privately view web pages here.

And finally, here is a Google article on how to use the Incognito window.