Top 10 Chrome Extensions for your Classroom 🏫

We made it through the month of August! Let's hope the following months of this school year are a little easier than this past. The following are a few of my favorite chrome extensions, as well as a few new ones I just learned about. All of these should help you out in your classroom!

• OneTab: If you're like me, you may have a ton of tabs open at one time (10 or more is usually what my screen looks like). I discovered this extension when I was teaching in the classroom and found it very helpful to organize the different links I would be using with my students each day. Rather than close them out and reopen them for my 2nd class, I clicked the button and all my tabs go to one page with easy to click links.

• Tab Scissors: This allows you to split two tabs into equal parts on the screen (think split screen). It saves you time and lets you view two different tabs in the same screen.

• Tab Glue: This extension goes along with tab scissors and lets you put your tabs back into one window with just one click.

• AdBlock for YouTube: This extension automatically skips ads and blocks them from your screen. No more having to worry about what ad may pop up next when trying to show videos to your class with this extension!

• Adblock Plus: If you want to block more ads than just on YouTube, using this extension will block pop-ups and malware on all sites. It includes YouTube ads and pop ups.

• Sir Links-a-Lot: This is a new one to me, but it allows you to create custom-share links for your Google files. This includes preview links, force a copy links, and even create a PDF.

• Turn off the Lights: This allows you to fade the page to dark if you are watching a video. Doing this will focus the page onto the video so students are distracted by other content. Hit the lamp button again to return the page to normal.

• URL shortener: Also a new to me extension, but this allows you to shorten links from the extension. You can also get a QR code through this extension as well!

• InsertLearning: This extension allows you to insert instructional content onto any websites (questions, discussions, take notes, etc.) It also integrates easily with Google Classroom. *Note- this has a free version and a paid version. I haven't used the extension, so I don't know at what extent you would need the free vs. paid version. It looks like you get 5 free lessons in the free version.
  

• Mote: Voice Notes & Feedback: If you haven't heard of Mote yet, it is a very helpful tool that allows you to create voice notes in Google apps (Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Classroom, Gmail). This allows you to quickly give feedback to students.
  

Bonus extension for math teachers: Download Equatio which is an extension that allows you to easily create math equations and formulas directly into Google... if I'd known about this when I typed out fractions all the time, my life would have been SO much easier! Quickly type an equation or formula into a Google Form and you have a quick, easy to grade quiz.

These are some of my favorite chrome extensions that I use on a daily basis (or plan to if I just learned about them). Are there any extensions you use that I may have missed? Comment below and let me know!