There are over three billion Google Chrome users worldwide, making it the most widely used web browser. So what does that mean for teachers? It means plenty of potential resources to help teachers in the classroom!
The vast ecosystem of extensions available for Google Chrome provides robust functionality levels, including tools to make any web page or document interactive, organize your favorite learning resources, improve your students' writing, and more.
You can find Google Chrome extensions on the Chrome Web Store, and they work with any operating system or device that runs Chrome (including Windows, Chromebooks, and macOS). In addition, you won't have to worry about making room for large files since they operate within the Chrome browser.
Google Chrome Extensions Can Be Very Useful for Teachers
Chrome extensions can make a teacher's life easier. With a few simple clicks, you can add new levels of functionality and customization to your daily routine work. In addition, extensions are primarily free, easy to install, and easy to use.
Increase productivity and save time
These extensions can increase productivity and save time by providing shortcuts, tools, and features directly in your Google Chrome browser. These extensions will help you get the most out of your teaching day, from taking notes to scanning for plagiarism.
Encourage creativity and increase engagement among students
Today’s students were born in a era of technology being the norm. With so much technology available, we need to help students navigate how to use it to enhance their learning. Introducing technology with efficient and multimedia extensions can help encourage creativity and cater to their strengths. Technology enables students to be creators and not just consumers of content. It also better allows students to have more control over their learning and work at their own pace.
Top 10 Google Chrome Extensions for Teachers
We have picked each Chrome extension based on factors that we think are important for the modern classroom. These extensions can help teachers teach better, and learners learn better. Read on below for a list of the ten best Google Chrome extensions for teachers:
1. Grammarly
Grammarly is a writing assistant that offers you specific recommendations to help you enhance your writing—and it goes way beyond grammar. For example, you may be sure that your writing is not only correct but also clear and concise. Grammarly Chrome extension (and the web app) will help you improve the quality of your writing, wherever you are.
Grammarly will automatically check grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and style preference errors.
Grammarly gives immediate feedback in Gmail, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Slides, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and most other online tools. Grammar, language, and formatting errors can detract from the credibility of your work, and having access to this extension can make a difference!
Key Benefits
Pricing and Plans
The basic version of Grammarly is free to use as a Chrome extension and as a web tool, providing an excellent way to get started. However, for more clarity and tone insights, word choice suggestions, the plagiarism checker, and more, you'll want Grammarly Premium for individuals (monthly fee of $12) or Business for groups (monthly cost of $12.50 per user). There’s also a solution offered for schools and educational institutions.2. Loom
Loom is a highly efficient and user-friendly method for recording material and staying in touch with your team. With a single click, you may capture your screen as well as your camera. Then, with a link, you can share that information right away.
If you need to demonstrate how to follow MLA format in Google Docs, for example, you may use the Loom extension to record your screen as you explain the guidelines of this writing style. Alternatively, you could need to show students how to use Google Classroom in your class. Students can use Loom to make presentations or present their work using the Loom extension.
It is easy for you to stay in the loop with async video whether you're screen recording an entire class session, providing feedback, or simply expressing yourself. This tool is helpful because it makes video easier for both teachers and students. It now has 14 million users from all around the world.
Key Benefits
The Loom platform is the most popular video collaboration tool for remote work, and it has many classroom applications as well. You can record, watch, and share a whole class to help you get things done, whether you're at your desk or on the road. It may document sessions, provide feedback, and send the students a recording to view it.
Pricing and Plans
There are limited video creating options in the free plan, but if you want to make the best out of Loom for chrome, you will need to pay a fee of $8/month after a 14-day trial. Loom does offer a separate free plan for teachers and educators called Loom for Education. The free plan is offered for students or teachers at schools, universities and educational institutions. You have to fill out a verification request through Loom's website here to receive the free plan.3. Google Keep
Google Keep is a virtual whiteboard where you may save anything you want to view later (such as URLs, text, and images from the web) and have it sync across devices. In addition, this Google Chrome extension can help you make notes on the material you save, tag notes with labels, and more.
Keep allows you to create color-coded checklists with checkboxes and add location reminders so that the next time you go to the store, it will remind you to buy the items you'll need for a project in your class. You may also organize your notes by adding labels to them and, as Keep synchronizes across all of your devices, you'll be able to view them from anywhere.
Key Benefits
Teachers may benefit from using Google Keep to stay organized. Breakthroughs and essential ideas about new methods or techniques will be easier to keep track of than ever before. You can jot down your thoughts, save articles, templates, and charts in a file, and keep them organized in a structure no matter where you are with Google Keep.
Pricing and Plans
4. QR-Code Generator
The QR-Code Generator program is a valuable chrome extension for converting any URL into a QR code without requiring complex steps. You may customize the color and size of the code and produce QR codes from ordinary text.
Key Benefits
A QR code can be a fantastic approach to ensure that students or parents visit the correct website or resource without confusion. QR codes are easily accessible on smartphones and tablets.
Pricing and Plans
The app appears to be a completely free Chrome extension with no paid or premium levels. You don't have to worry about ads, either.
5. Kami
Kami gives tools to assist with any learning style, increase student engagement, and improve learning outcomes for all! It's a document markup tool that can transform various file types into dynamic content with live comments, including word documents, PDFs, slideshows, and pictures. In addition, drawings, audio, and video material may all be included in the annotations when using Kami.
Key Benefits
With PDF, there may be a lot of uncomfortable scrolling, zooming in and out, and general fidgeting in practice. You can use Kami to add interactivity to PDFs and convert them into engaging lessons. Make the classroom come alive again by adding interactive questions and media to a PDF.
Pricing and Plans
Kami's basic Chrome extension does not need you to create an account, and it is free to use. However, you'll need to upgrade to a $99 per year teacher plan if you want more advanced annotation tools like audio and video with Google Classroom, Canvas, and Schoology integrations, as well as unlock sophisticated notation options such as chalk drawings. Schools or entire districts can also purchase customized plans.6. Smallpdf
Smallpdf lets you create or edit PDFs, rearrange pages, or merge or split documents for free, while you need to pay for the features while using Adobe. Smallpdf is a chrome extension that converts PDFs into an editable format. So now, when you come across a math worksheet in a PDF file, you may transform it into a document where pupils can type their answers. The extension also enables you to combine, split, and compress PDF files.
Key Benefits
Teachers may now use inexpensive, non-commercial tools to create, edit, split, combine, convert, and compress PDFs without having to pay for an Adobe subscription.
Pricing and Plans
The basic version includes 21 powerful editing tools but restricts you to two documents per day, including advertisements. An unlimited Pro account costs $9 a month, and there are also custom school-wide packages.
7. EquatIO
EquatIO is a simple tool for developing digitized mathematical equations and formulas, even quizzes if you're a math teacher or work with math in your subject area. Teachers can be well aware of the problems that non-user-friendly math typefaces can cause. EquatIO allows you to avoid time-consuming techniques.
Key Benefits
EquatIO enables teachers to generate equations and problems quickly for students to complete. Teachers may type, write by hand, or even dictate equations into EquatIO, which correctly converts the equations into proper formatting that can be pasted into other applications like Word.
Pricing and Plans
The free edition offers a lot, but more extensive features and integrations (including Google Slides and Sheets and LMS integration) need a paid site license. A toolset that lands between free and premium is available to individual instructors for a "free for teachers" license.
The "free for teachers" license is available for K-12 educators. You must register with a school email. To register for your free educator's license follow the link here.
8. Mote
It's essential to provide formative feedback while learning, but typing individual comments in student work may be time-consuming. The Mote extension allows you to record voice comments and audio material from any application, including Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Google Classroom, and Gmail. Mote also lets users translate comments into more than 20 different languages.
Key Benefits
The Mote app is a collaboration tool that allows you to leave audio comments on student work, and it works with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It is highly beneficial for teachers to be able to leave formative feedback in a way that students can easily access and understand.
Check our TeacherGoals Tech Talk Live Episode featuring Mote Voice Design w/ Jon Neale, Lois Alston, and Alex Isaacs to learn more about all the awesome uses for Mote in your classroom.
Pricing and Plans
The basic plan allows you to record 20 motes every month, up to 30 seconds for each video. After that, you need to go for a $39 per year plan for unlimited individual and team plans. They have a separate plan for entire schools and districts.
9. Pocket
Every day, Google generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. There's a lot of educational material here, including video tutorials and ebooks. The sheer number of all these might be daunting. However, with the toolbar extension or a keyboard shortcut, you may save anything on the internet (articles, screenshots, videos, and more) to your Pocket account.
Key Benefits
Many educators prefer to use Pocket to save, tag, and share important articles and resources that they come across on the internet. All of your magnificent finds are kept clean and organized by Pocket.
Pricing and Plans
Pocket is free if you are okay with the ads. You may get an annual premium membership for $44.99 to remove the advertisements.10. Edpuzzle
Teachers may use Edpuzzle to construct engaging lessons by adding questions at specific moments in a video or even voice comments, which is an excellent way for students to interact with a video.
Key Benefits
Teachers can keep track of students' progress in a lesson by monitoring whether they watch the videos. With Edpuzzle, students get prompts to answer questions that evaluate their comprehension. Teachers can then view all student responses. Edpuzzle has videos already made for educators to use, but educators may also develop and customize videos for instructional use.
Pricing and Plans
You can enjoy storage space for 20 video lessons with the basic free plan. If you need more, you need to pay $12.50 per month. In addition, schools and districts can get all their teachers on the same secure video learning platform under a custom plan!
3 Things to Consider When Selecting Google Chrome Extensions
While choosing each Google Chrome extension, we considered the following three factors:
Ease of use
The extensions we listed should be easy to install and use, with a minimal learning curve due to being intuitive and straightforward. Students can also use many of the mentioned Chrome extensions.
Functionality
The extensions offer a range of features that are helpful for teachers and students. The features are robust enough to provide exceptional enhancements to teaching or learning but not so overwhelming that they are challenging to use.
Value for money
Since most extensions come with a free and premium version, we looked at the value for money offered by each one. Generally, free versions have fewer features, while paid versions offer more. However, this rule has a few exceptions, so it's essential to consider all the features an extension provides before deciding.
Now that you know about some of the must-have Chrome extensions for teachers and students go ahead and try them out!
Technology isn’t Going Anywhere!
Technology is a crucial part of our life, and as teachers, it plays an essential role in your professional lives. Online learning accelerated dramatically during the pandemic, and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. According to the Pearson Global Learners Survey, 88% of people believe that online learning will be part of children’s education experience going forward.
Many technology companies provide free or paid products to meet user requirements, and we hope that you found a few in this article that you might try in the classroom. Please let us know if you have any of your favorites that we left off our list or how it went when you tried some of our suggestions!
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Great list of Chrome extensions for teachers! I’ve used several of these and found them incredibly helpful in the classroom. I wanted to mention another extension that’s been a real game-changer for me: Brisk Teaching. It’s a free, AI-driven tool that significantly cuts down on lesson planning time. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re looking to streamline your workflow. Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.briskteaching.com/