More #ChromeExtensions to Simplify Your Day!

It is not a secret that I love Google and anything Google related, including the Google Chrome web browser.  As you are most likely aware, the Chrome Web Store offers thousands of apps and extensions that make doing your every day work more efficient and simpler.  My browser window next time my Omnibox (address bar) is chock full of extensions that I use on a regular basis, plus more that I have turned off and use only when I need them so they do not drag down my browser's performance (a great extension to manage your extensions is Extensity, it allows you to toggle on or off extension with a couple of clicks).  And in the past, some of my most popular posts have been about Google Chrome extensions, so I am bringing you another round of extensions that are you are going to love because they are going to simplify and enhance your life!

See below for the citation for this image!

If you are writing a paper or having students write a paper, citation of sources is absolutely a required skill.  In my early days of teaching, I had copies of citation style books like MLA and APA for my students and would also provide them with the Purdue University OWL website that provided detailed instructions and examples of how to cite just about anything in just about any format.  Today, I use an extension called Cite This for Me: Web Citer.  This extension will allow you to quickly create citations for websites in APA, Chicago, Harvard, and MLA format and also has a full tool built into the extension to direct you to citethisforme.com to cite books, newspapers, etc. and create a bibliography/works cited/references page.  They do have a premium account, but I get along just fine with the free version.  However a quick disclaimer: the citations are not perfect.  In APA, for example, they usually list the full name of authors when proper APA style lists the author's last name followed by the first initial.  So it pays to cross reference some other sources at times to double check, but kind of like Wikipedia in research, Cite This for Me is a great starting point!  Oh, and the citation produced for the image above is:

Cite This For Me Review for Teachers | Common Sense Education. (2015). Common Sense Education. Retrieved 1 March 2019, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/refme-1

After you install the Edpuzzle extension, use it from the button below
a video on YouTube!  And thanks, John Green, for being my model
for said screenshot demonstration!

If you are like me, you use a lot of video in your class to address visual and audio learners.  YouTube has been a good friend of mine for a long time, but even the best videos sometimes could not engage students and formatively assessing students afterward was not very effective.  Then I was introduced to Edpuzzle, a program that allows users to embed questions, voiceovers, and more into videos from YouTube and other sites.  You simply find a video, reuse ones that have already been created by other users (!) or created your own activities for the video.  You can even set it to where students have to answer the questions before they continue to watch the video and use their responses for grades as it tracks responses.  The Edpuzzle extension makes it even easier because rather than having to search for videos in Edpuzzle, it adds a button on YouTube to edit in Edpuzzle!  It's a great time saver, especially if you weren't necessarily looking to create an activity in Edpuzzle and you happen to come across a great video!

Image courtesy of www.wakelet.com

A great new tool that is really gaining a lot of steam in the last few months is Wakelet. I actually covered this in a previous post on Google Chrome extensions, but it is so great that I feel that it warrants a second look! Wakelet allows users to create collections of images, webpages, Tweets, and much more and share them.  Rather than bookmarking pages, you can add them to Wakelet and share them more easily.  I like to use Wakelet to curate collections of Tweets after a particularly great Twitter chat or after attending a conference or training.  You simply create a collection, search by a hashtag, and add the tweets that you want to put in.  And after I've completed my collection, I can share it on Twitter, tagging those whose Tweets were included in the collection.  But sometimes you come across something on a website that you really like and want to add it to a quick collection.  Rather than opening up wakelet.com and logging into your account, if you install the Wakelet extension, you click on the extension and quickly add it to a collection or create a collection with a couple of clicks! And if you want to learn more about the Wakelet, I learned from one of the best in Randall Sampson, check out his profile on Twitter, connect with him, and you can also harness the power of Wakelet! 

Image courtesy of clipboardextension.com

As educators, you are most likely cutting, copying, and pasting things all day, every day.  One of the issues that you probably come across is when you copy something, forgot that you copied it because you didn't paste it right away, then copied something else, clearing your previous copy.  The Clipboard History 2 extension eliminates this problem by creating a clipboard of all of your copies!  Whenever you cut or copy something, the extension saves your copy so you can go back and get it.  This is great for items that you use on a regular basis or if you are copying multiple things to paste into a document, a blog post, a Tweet, etc.  You can even create favorites that the extension will remember and save for you to revisit, create settings to delete items after a certain period of time or after so many items have been copied, and many more!  This is a great extension that I am not using as much as I could, but that's only because I sometimes forget that it's there! 

Image courtesy of
the Chrome Web Store

Ever find yourself looking at something on a website and really like the font that is used but you do not have an easy way to figure it out?  This happens to me every now and then, especially when I am trying to match the fonts in what I am creating with the product that I am writing about (ex. Pear Deck).  The Chrome extension WhatFont helps solve this problem!  Once you install this extension, you simply click on it, hover over the text that you are inquiring about, and a bubble will appear telling you the font!  It's that simple!  Once you know, you can go into Google Docs, Slides, Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, whatever it is and set your font! 

Without going back and looking through my previous posts, I believe that this is either my fourth or fifth Chome extension edition of the blog.  In my opinion, anything that helps me save time and be more efficient in my daily life is a winner, and because new extensions are added all the time and others are updated with new features, I have no issue with writing one of these every few months.  Hopefully, you have some doozies that you will share as well! 

Until next time...