In this time of virtual learning, it’s important that we find tools that are effective and efficient for student learning. Chrome extensions are able to add more versatility to websites and can also offer scaffolding opportunities for teachers and students. Here’s my top list of 9 Chrome Extensions You Should Know About:
Wakelet
I’ve made it known that Wakelet is my favorite tool at the moment, so of course it made this list! The extension makes it super easy for me to curate online resources such as websites, videos, or images and put them into collections to return to later or share out with colleagues and students. I’ve seen many teachers use Wakelet as a delivery system for learning, like this example by Bonnie Nieves that makes the lesson a transformed “HyperDoc”. This can be used during remote learning or for substitute teachers or to allow students to go through the content at their own pace.
Even better, when I add the extension, it also adds an icon to my Twitter feed (website only) that allows me to quickly save tweets and add them to a collection. This is ingenious as I am constantly finding resources on Twitter that I want to save.
Diigo
I’ve been using Diigo for years. Seriously, since like 2008… It’s a social bookmarking tool that allows me to bookmark websites, articles, and PDFs; annotate on them and add saved sites into categories through tags that are searchable. These saved sites are private to me, but it also allows for the creation of groups and I created one for my school that categorizes sites by content areas. Sites saved in these groups are public and anyone can search the tags for sites that pertain to their area.
The extension allows me to quickly save a site that I think is valuable and save it either to my own collection or the school group collection. It also allows to me annotate without having to be logged into the full site. This is a great way for teachers to curate resources for students or for students to share resources during group projects.
Grammarly
While I know I am a good writer, I still like to depend on Grammarly to back me up. I use this extension on all of my Google Docs and this blog; really any online site where I can write. Grammarly automatically checks my spelling and grammar as I’m writing and I don’t have to click additional buttons to run spell check. It’s a huge time saver. I also get a little kick every week when I get my usage report and what I did well on and what I need to work on.
This is a great extension for students to use, as well, helping them to quickly identify areas that need to be fixed in their writing. Kathryn Nieves, described in this Edutopia article, how she has her students forward their usage reports to her, so she can see their development and assign students personalized grammar practice based on their real writing needs.
Toby
I haven’t been using Toby for very long, but I think it’s going to start changing my life! I am a tab hoarder; I can easily have 20 tabs open at any given time and often don’t turn my computer off, because I am afraid of losing a tab! Instead, with Toby I can drag tabs and visually organize them in one place through collections.
As the picture shows below, when I open a new tab in Chrome, Toby opens. I can view my already opened tabs along the right side and see the collections I have already made on the left. I can drag tabs from the right into any of the collections or create a new one.
Or I can save the entire session, by clicking “save session” in the top right corner. I can also search all of my collections using the search bar in the top left and Toby will highlight which resources match my keywords. Like I said, I’m still new to this extension, but I’m really pleased with what it’s allowed me to do so far!
Save to Keep
I use Google Keep in primarily two ways: as pop up reminders on my phone and as to-do lists that I can check off, but there is so much more you can do with it! The Save to Keep extension allows you to save sites and images, add notes to sites and automatically save them to your Google Keep account. When I click the Save to Keep icon, a little box pops up with the name of the site, an image (if available) and a link to the site. Then you can add a note and a label to tag the site. Students could use this extension as a way to save resources they want to cite or link to for a project.
However, there’s also another extension worth mentioning. Popup for Keep allows you to access your Google Keep without leaving the site you are on; it just opens in a smaller window. You can still take notes or add images…all the same features are included!
Equatio
Equatio is an extension that allows you to add equations and mathematical formulas to G Suite apps (Docs, Slides, Forms, etc). I use it often to demonstrate to teachers how math can be used digitally. I love how easy it is to add to Google Forms, especially. I just hit the extension to turn it on, click where I want the equation to go, type it out in the Equatio pop up window and then insert. You can create equations through the Equation Editor, LaTeX Editor, Handwriting Recognition or Speech Input.
It is also free for educators through this link: https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/free-for-teachers/
Bitmoji
I don’t like most pictures of myself and Bitmoji provides an alternative that still looks like me, but sets a fun tone. It’s a fun extension to use to play up lessons or professional development sessions. I use it a lot on Twitter too and for some it’s become part of their social media branding. The easiest way to use it is once you have created your avatar, is to open the extension, select the one you want, and right-click and either “save image as” or “copy image”. Then you can either insert it or paste it into Google Slides, Gmail, tweets, just about anything you like!
Draftback
Draftback is a great tool for any teacher! This extension does a “play back” through the history of any Google Doc that you have edit rights to allowing you to see how students progressed through essays or assignments that they share with you. You can see stroke for stroke what students did and how they developed their writing.
If this is a little fast for you, your other option is review the version history of the Google Doc. Go to File>version history and see each time the student made changes to the document.
Move It
I have to thank my fellow ITRT colleague Ashley Bajohr for this one. She introduced this during a meeting and it’s a great reminder to move myself! Move It allows you set a timer for anywhere from 5 minutes to 55 minutes and gives you quick activities to get up and move. I don’t use it as often as I should, but it could work great in the classroom helping to transition students from activities or just take a break. Set it up on your teacher computer and set the timer and see what fun activity that whole class has to do!
Do you have other Chrome extensions you can recommend? Share in the comments!
Ms Priester EDU 