Thursday, January 5, 2012

Life after Internet Explorer- Welcome to Chrome

Edina Public Schools is rolling out Google Chrome as a browser option for our staff and students.  I have created a website that helps teachers learn about Chrome and the benefits of Apps and Extensions.

This is a great YouTube video that helps teachers understand that there is more than one way to access the web.

Google Chrome Resources for Teachers


What is an extension?



Try extensions

Molly's Favorite Extensions
  • Turn off the lights- when watching a YouTube Video, the rest of the screen turns black and the movie is highlighted
  • Goo.gl URL Shortener + QR- provides a shortened URL and QR code for any website you are on.  Saves me 5 clicks when sharing!
  • Picasa Extension- Quick access to Picasa Pictures
  • Picnik Extension- Easily edit any image on your screen.  You can also capture the picture on the screen and bring it to Picnik
  • Gmail Attachments to Docs- Save those pesky Gmail attachments directly to Google Docs from the attachment list itself with a newly added Save To Docs link.
  • Google Dictionary-  View definitions easily as you browse the web
  • Google Docs Viewer-  List, view, search, rename, delete, and create new documents in Google Docs
  • Screen Capture Capture visible content of a tab, a region of a web page, or the whole page as a PNG image. Support horizontal and vertical scroll when capturing whole page, with an all new autosave capability.
  • Amazon Wish List-  Add products from any website to your Amazon Wish List
  • 10 More Useful Chrome Extensions
Molly's Favorite Apps
Chrome for the Classroom Presentation- A collaborative presentation

7 comments:

CoachWhited said...

Molly,

I've been trying to sway our district into offering Chrome as and option for students, but our Tech. Dept. keeps shutting down the idea stating that we can not control the content that students have access to. Is this a problem with your district or have you found a way to restrict access while still utilizing the Chrome browser? Thanks!

M. Schroeder said...

All internet traffic (almost all) goes through the M86 internet filter. IE, Chrome, Firefox, Macs, Windows, iPads etc.
Chrome also use the Windows security certificate store that we use with IE (and like) and it also has enterprise deployment options and customizations (like IE) and it includes a version of Flash and PDF reader that self updates (we like) and it self updates unlike IE.

MrLangelett said...

From a tech guy's perspective, auto-updating can be good or bad. If Google releases an update that is somehow incompatible with other software, hardware, etc., you may not be able to access the internet or worse yet, it could cause computer crashes. I've tried Chrome and there ARE some good features, but like any software there are still some issues there. Whatever your choice, test first or fail later.

Anonymous said...

Molly...

I love this post! I have showed numerous teachers in Cashton about why they need to start using Chrome. Your post really helps clarify what i'm trying to say!

P.S. Found a cool chrome extension called "quiettube". Using this, you can show youtube videos with just the video and a blank screen. Great for teachers who aren't ready to embed yet. It's kind of a way to filter out the bad comments.

You probably already heard of it :)

Anonymous said...

I've been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all site owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be much more useful than ever before.
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Anonymous said...

I love using chrome. Chrome on one of the best tablet hybrid laptops with pocket, postman, pixlr and google drive is like magic. Too bad the adblock extension isn't as great compared to firefox.

Sara said...

This is the advantage that google has, their apps are areally customisable, i hope we can use all of them on other operating systems like google drive for windows