IntelliScribe for teachers
Five minutes to set up · works on school Chromebooks and laptops · nothing leaves the device by default
1. Install it
Open the IntelliScribe AI page on the Chrome Web Store and click Add to Chrome. A setup tab opens by itself.
2. Finish the setup tab
- Pick your look — four colour schemes, light or dark. Change it any time in Settings.
- Sign in — optional. Skip it for now; you can create an account later (step 5).
- Where should writing checks run? — choose Just the everyday writing sites (Gmail, Google Docs, Outlook, Canvas, Notion and similar) or Allow on all sites. Chrome asks once. Banking sites, school portals and password fields are always left alone.
- Pin it — click the puzzle piece at the top right of Chrome, then the pin next to IntelliScribe AI, so the icon stays visible.
3. Writing checks
Click into any text box on an allowed site. Mistakes are underlined as you type and a small pen in the bottom-left corner counts them. Click the pen to see every issue, fix one with Fix, or fix everything with Fix all. The pen can be dragged to any corner.
Ctrl+Shift+Yturns checks on or off for the page you are on.- Names and subject-specific words you do not want flagged: pen → Settings → Writing → Your words.
- Everything is checked on the computer itself. No text is sent anywhere.
4. Dictation
Click into a text box, press Ctrl + Shift + Space, talk, press it again. The words are typed where your cursor was and copied to your clipboard as a backup. The first time, Chrome asks for microphone permission and the extension downloads its speech model once (about 100 MB); after that it works offline.
- Choose Fast, Balanced or Accurate in Settings → Transcription.
- Everything you dictate is kept in the History tab of the side panel, grouped by the page you were on.
- Recordings, uploads and pasted text can be cleaned up, summarised or turned into key points in the side panel (click the IntelliScribe icon).
5. An account (optional)
An account only does one thing: it keeps your history in sync between computers. Create one from the side panel with your school email and a password. Google sign-in is also available, but many districts block third-party Google sign-in for staff accounts, so the email option is the safe choice.
6. AI features (optional)
Rewrite, change tone, shorten and summarise are switched off until an API key is added in Settings → General → API keys. The built-in guide (“How do I get an API key?”) walks through getting a free Google Gemini key. Without a key, everything above still works. For student devices, leaving the key out keeps the extension fully on-device.
For IT
Manifest V3, no remote code, no analytics. Permissions: storage, sidePanel, offscreen (microphone), activeTab + scripting (the dictation bar and writing checks on the page you invoke them on), contextMenus, identity (optional sign-in), and optional site access that the user grants during setup. Outbound connections only when a user opts in: huggingface.co (speech model download), the AI provider the user entered a key for, and our database host (convex.cloud) when signed in. Full policy: intelliscribe-app.netlify.app/privacy.html.
Devices where extensions are blocked
There is a browser version at intelliscribe-app.netlify.app/app that needs no install. Its Write tab runs the same on-device spelling and grammar checker — paste an essay in, fix it, copy it back — so a device with extensions blocked still gets the checking. Dictation and the in-page pen still need the extension.
Questions
Email onwarddigitalca@gmail.com.