Top 10 Google Chrome Extensions That Enhance Student Learning

This post was co-authored by Beth Holland and Tracy Sockalosky. Being 1:1 is fantastic, and if you are fortunate enough to have constant access to your own device in the classroom, then the benefits – especially in terms of efficiency – are tremendous: stored passwords, saved bookmarks, familiar file structure, and more. However, even if you don’t have the advantage of always being in possession of your own device, thanks to the versatility of Google Chrome extensions available through the Chrome Store, the web experience has become customizable and productive in completely new ways. What are Chrome Extensions? Chrome Extensions are tools that live inside of your Chrome Browser and provide additional functionality by connecting to other web utilities. We also find this video to be a helpful explanation for getting started. When we think about tools to maximize efficiency and enhance student learning, these 10 Chrome extensions immediately come to mind. EdTechTeacher advertises on this site.

Pro Con Lists Citelighter Is Like a Highlighter for the Internet The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Citelighter Quick Pitch: Citelighter keeps information from multiple web sources in one place. Genius Idea: Making it easy to compile notes — and citations — from multiple web pages. For better or worse, students use the Internet for research. Citelighter attempts to solve this conundrum by giving students a note-collecting toolbar that sticks with them as they navigate the web. Through marketing partnerships with well-targeted websites such as CollegeHumor and Frat Music, the company says it has signed up students at 1,000 different universities since it launched in August 2010. In the current version, users are restricted to collecting information on websites through a Firefox extension. Citelighter is simple and easy to use. Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Clip and post resources Just want to quickly share some text between computers without fuss? There used to be a great resource for this called Cl1p.net, but it has closed its doors. However, there are a number of other resources out there that do the same thing. They allow you to create URLs either that you create, or with an address they can provide and you can simply cut and paste your content to your URL and share it with whoever you want. So, take a look at these: Clipbord It says of itself: "Instantly make a page to share notes and related files. Kl1p It says of itself: "Sharing text or code over internet now made easier and faster than ever before! Short Text Simply add in the text that you want to share, allow comments if preferred, add links to video, limited to 30,000 characters. WePaste About as simple as they come.

Pinterest There's been a lot of interest in Pinterest recently (sorry, that wasn't intentional), and I've been using it for a while, so I thought I should scribble it. Basically, it's a social bookmarking service, but for pictures. You can create your own folders, 'pin' images into them, view friends images, comment, add them to yours and so on. This is what my home page looks like: You can see the kind of folders that I've created, but of course you can choose any you like. It's a very simple concept, but quite addictive - partly because I use images a lot when I'm teaching, and Pinterest gives me a very easy way to keep them all neatly together and I can see them visually, and partly because you can view lots of images really quickly. I've already found it a very useful system, and it's really one of those 'why didn't I think of it' services.