Apps and Extensions I Use Daily

I have a little bit of a Chrome extension problem (ok, it's a pretty big problem) but there are so many that save me time or enable my students or I to do something we couldn't previously do that they are a necessity in my digital life.

Time Savers

Tab Cloud enables you to store a series of tabs and once you are signed into Chrome, you click on it and choose your series of saved tabs and boom! They are open.  I use this every single day.  In the morning, I use the same 14 tabs and opening each one every morning took me about 15 minutes between typing in the web address and waiting for each to load that finding this extension was huge for me.  My students use it and it saves so much time at the beginning of each class period!

Goo.gl URL Shortener
This seems self explanatory, but it's uses go beyond saving time for students or teachers typing in a URL to join what you are doing.  It also automatically creates a QR code with analytics attached to it.  This means that you do not have to go to a separate website to create the QR code.  You can see how many people have used it to access whatever it is connected to and what type of device they are using.

One Tab is one of my favorite extensions (which is saying a lot) because I seem to find a new use for it at least once a week.  I use it most often at conferences to share out my learning and enable anyone looking at it (and me) to review all of the resources I discovered at the conference.  Here is an example: http://goo.gl/bK3sFU from #EdCampCNJ this past weekend.  As you can see, I had a lot of tabs open, but this way I always have an archive of them to review at later times.  I also use it a lot when curating resources for my students.  Here is an example: http://goo.gl/SP4RKf. I don't always give them the resources because there is merit in encouraging them to find and evaluate resources, but sometimes I need to save time in the search process.  Another reason I use it is to send people resources.  For example, we were searching for a new sound system for my classroom and instead of sending 15 links to my principal I One Tabbed those links and then sent him the one link.  That way, it saved him time and I knew he was on the right page for each website. 

Mighty Text not only saves me time because I can type a text message faster, but it also allows me to get my notifications where there isn't any cell service.  I typically have to go to our BOCES for meetings and inside the building there is no cell service.  I leave my phone in the car, where there is service, and I am able to get and respond to my notifications in real time.  Both a time saver and it allows me to deal with any problems that occur with no delay.

Save to Google Drive allows me to curate resources during Twitter chats or if I am surfing the web with only a few clicks instead of copying and pasting, which doesn't always work.  I can then search my Drive later to find the resource, where if I had simply saved the link as a bookmark, I might not remember what it was on the page that I needed.

EdPuzzle allows you to take a YouTube video and crop it and then add in open ended questions, multiple choice questions, comments or voice overs and then gives you both a link to share out to anyone or an embed code to put in your LMS.  This not only saves me time, but it also allows me to create a video of the material I would have covered had I been there on a day when I am out.  This ensures that the learning continues even in my absence.  It also gives me data on the back end so I can use it as a formative assessment. 

Extensity saves me time when looking for extensions when I need them because it organizes them alphabetically.  It also allows me to turn them on and off as I need them.  This means that I can have as many as I want, and still have a URL window to use!

There are many more apps and extensions I use and they can be found here: https://goo.gl/vjBOfz.

Enjoy!