FIRST SESSION

Getting started with StudyStride

This guide takes you through one short session: authorizing capture, speaking while you browse, checking the complete transcript, and creating a screenshot report. AI questions and summaries are separate choices, not automatic steps.

Before you begin

Use Google Chrome with StudyStride installed from the Chrome Web Store.
Sign into the Google account that should own the session document and any Drive exports.
Open the browser page you want to discuss in a normal http or https tab. Chrome settings, extension pages, and other internal Chrome pages cannot be captured.
Connect the microphone you intend to use and close other applications that may be using it.
Obtain any notice or consent required before recording another person, a class, a meeting, or confidential material.

Try a short rehearsal first. For your first session, speak for one or two minutes and visit two visibly different parts of a page. This makes it easy to verify the microphone, transcript, screenshots, and PDF workflow.

Open the StudyStride side panel

Select the StudyStride icon in Chrome’s toolbar. If it is hidden, open Chrome’s Extensions menu and pin StudyStride.
The side panel opens at Start a session. If another session is still active, StudyStride restores it instead of silently starting a new one.
If Chrome asks you to sign in or authorize Google, confirm that the displayed Google account is the one you want to use.

Configure the session

Enter a descriptive Session name, such as “Biology source review,” “Code review 3,” or “August onboarding walkthrough.”
Under Google Doc, you may choose Create new or Choose existing. If you do neither, StudyStride creates a private session document automatically when capture starts. A summary is added only after you explicitly generate, review, approve, and publish it.
Choose the Browser source: Google Slides / Drive for presentations or Any browser page for ordinary web content.
Choose System default microphone or a named device. A named microphone locks the session to that input; the default follows Chrome and your operating system.
Open Capture & storage options. Keep key screenshots is on because screenshots are required for the capture report. Keep audio is off by default: StudyStride uses temporary audio for transcription and deletes it afterward unless you select retention.
Optionally open Optional AI questions and select Generate questions after capture. Only then do the familiarity, one-to-five question limit, exploration level, and suggestion threshold controls become active.
Read What is captured?, select the consent checkbox, and choose Start capture.

Speak and browse

Grant microphone and browser-tab permissions when Chrome requests them. Speak during the microphone check so StudyStride can verify the selected device.
Keep the authorized tab active while you narrate. Say what you are looking at, what you conclude, and what evidence supports that conclusion.
With Capture visual changes automatically selected, pause briefly when a meaningful new view appears. StudyStride saves selected changes rather than recording continuous browser video.
Choose Capture current view when a specific browser state must be preserved even if it is visually similar to the previous view.
You may choose Hide controls. Audio and visual-change capture continue; select the toolbar icon to reopen the side panel.
Choose Stop & review when you reach a natural checkpoint. StudyStride closes the recording, transcribes the complete retained audio in overlapping sections, removes overlap duplicates, validates the capture, and then opens private review.

Review and finish

Choose Prepare capture report. StudyStride aligns timestamped transcript phrases with the time range represented by each screenshot; it does not ask AI to summarize the image or your words.
When preparation finishes, choose Download capture report. Verify that each screenshot is followed by the words spoken while that view was active.
If you selected optional questions before capture, review each candidate and choose Approve, Used, Hold, or Dismiss. If questions were off, no candidates are generated.
Choose Continue capturing to add another segment to the same capture package, or choose Generate optional AI summary only when an interpretive synthesis is useful.
Review every summary section. Expand AI generation details to see the recorded model/run evidence, then use Edit summary if the wording needs correction.
Choose Approve summary. Approval does not share the summary by itself.
Choose Add summary to Google Doc. The button becomes Open Google Doc after the append succeeds.
Use Download summary for a Markdown copy, or choose Prepare files for Gemini Notebook to review the transcript, images, capture report, and retained audio.
Choose Finish session & choose a new document when this continuous session is complete.

Review before relying on AI output

Speech recognition and optional AI-generated material can contain mistakes. Compare important transcript passages with retained audio when available and compare optional AI output with the screenshot and transcript evidence. Do not treat an unreviewed output as a factual record, grade, or professional decision.

Capture is user-controlled, not invisible. Start only after reviewing the disclosure and obtaining any permission required for the people, organization, or content involved.