I am in LOVE with Chrome Extensions
Before the Semana Santa holiday, I eagerly travelled to EdTechTeam's Google Summit in Phoenix, Arizona with high hopes of geeking out over Google tools. Once I arrived, it quickly became less about learning HOW to use the technology, and more about WHEN I could incorporate all of the fantastic, easy-to-use tools in my classroom. Some of my favourite sessions were about student mastery (and using badges for motivation), research-related resources (like Diigo, Sheets (yes, Sheets!), and how to influence teens rather than just manage them, but I feel the most immediate take-away I had was about the amazing variety and usability of Google extensions. I am in LOVE with Chrome extensions! Here are some of my current favourites inspired by my time at the Google Summit.
Screencastify
During the intensive Google bootcamp on Day 1, I excitedly played around with Screencastify (a Chrome Extension for screen video recording), despite the fact that I have always shied away from audio or visual recordings of myself in the past. Since it is a Chrome extension, the film strip icon sits on your Chrome toolbar which means Screencastify is only a quick click away, and the video is automatically saved in your Google Drive, so it can easily be added to any Haiku page. Because of its easy access and simplicity, Screencastify makes tutorials, audio/visual directions or flipped classroom instruction seem a lot less tedious and a lot more possible for screen-shy educators like myself.
Tab Scissors & Tab Glue
The extensions, Tab Scissors and Tab Glue do exactly what they sound like they should for Chrome tabs —slice tabs and then stick tabs back together. If you would like to split your screen so that you can see two of your Chrome tabs at the same time (for example, when you’re looking at Google Slides on one tab and creating questions related to the Slides in a Google Form), simply click Tab Scissors scissor icon and the extension creates two equal-sized Chrome windows immediately. In the past, I have done the window shuffle where I am trying to make sure that both Chrome windows are exactly in the right spot, with not too much overlapping, but wide enough to see everything necessary, so it’s amazing that Tab Scissors takes care of this in a second. Then, when you want to merge the tabs together again into one window, click the glue bottle icon (for Tab Glue), and POOF, it’s back to normal.
Tab Snooze I often like to use my Google Chrome tabs like a to-do list. The joy of Tab Snooze is that you can hide a tab, by clicking on the moon icon, for any length of time so that the tab will pop up when you’ve asked, including: later today, this evening, tomorrow, this weekend, in a week, this month, periodically or any specific date that you pick. If you often forget to take attendance in the mornings, Tab Snooze. If you found a recipe during lunch break that you want to use later, Tab Snooze. If you want to return to a Google Doc or Form a week from now to look at the results, Tab Snooze. I told you, I’m in love! Explore! If you are excited to explore the vast world of Google extensions, I’d highly recommend checking out extensions you can use professionally, like 1-Click Timer, Diigo and Power Thesaurus. And, if you’re also looking for more personalized extensions, you might want to check out things like Adblock for Youtube, PostureMinder, and RatherNice. My only warning is to set a timer (perhaps 1-Click Timer), because once you start exploring, it’s easy to fall down the Google Chrome extensions rabbit hole.
