Discover tips, tools, and resources for using Chromebooks in education. Enhance learning and productivity with strategies tailored for classrooms.
The Chrome browser is so dynamic that I’m often amazed at its functionality and how it can help the many students who are now reading on digital devices. If you have students who need a better reading experience or struggle with reading comprehension, then there are some apps and extensions that will help them. And many of these will be perfect for differentiating learning!
Reading Comprehension
Newsela – This is one of my favorite Chrome apps that I always feature in my trainings. Newsela features current event articles covering many subjects, each written at five different Lexile levels. With this extension, students can read the same material at an appropriate level for themselves.
TLDR: Summarize Anything – The TLDR extension creates a short summary of any web article without leaving the original page. This will help students discern the most important ideas in the article they are reading.
Word Cloud Website Preview – I love word clouds, so this is another favorite of mine! This extension can turn any content from the web into a word cloud. The word cloud can then be reviewed to summarize the content on the page or to help decipher key words used.
Readability
ATbar – This Chrome extension provides you with a toolbar that has many features including color overlays for web pages, a dictionary, text to speech, word prediction, and more.
BeeLine Reader – Bee Line Reader is another one of my most beloved extensions, so much so that I wrote a blog entry about it here. It creates a more readable version of a website by removing all of the ads and other extra distracting items. In addition, a color gradient can be applied to the page in order to guide the eye from one line to the next.
MagicScroll Web Reader – This extension turns web pages into a flippable ebook. Its unique scrolling system lets you scroll web pages without moving them. This makes it easier to read long articles without being distracted.
Mercury Reader – If your students are easily distracted, then they might want to get Mercury Reader. It makes any website easier to read by removing ads and distractions. You can also adjust the font size and color scheme of the new text.
This list is just a few of the many Chrome extensions and apps that help with readability and reading comprehension. We will be sharing many more in our upcoming monthly Get Your Google On webinars, so make sure you register for them today.
If you discovered other app and extensions that work with the Chrome browser to help students with reading, please share in the Comments section below.
This blog was updated with new content and resources on October 15, 2017.
If you like listening to audiobooks, you’ll enjoy using OverDrive. If your district doesn’t subscribe to it, check and see if your local public library does. If so, you can check out audiobooks from them, as well as through their network of other contributing libraries!
While grandparents love this app for making collages of their grandkids, students of all ages will find this app easy to use when they have an assignment where they can create collages, annotate over photos, etc.
Though many of us remember copying down notes in class to study for tests, current students seem to prefer to take photos of the board to capture their notes. This app is so handy for that. Point and aim it at the board, projector, paper, etc.. Once it detects the area, you just snap the photo; it will crop it so only the board is in the photo and deskew the image so it looks like you had prime seating in front of the board when you took the picture. Save as an image on your device or as a PDF or Office format if you have an Office 365 account.
Sometimes you want your students to record a video to capture their learning. But many devices have a default video recording app that is bare bones. You’ll find Adobe Express to be an easy go-to tool that will help students make great videos without getting bogged down in the technical aspects of videography. Though it is only for iOS currently, it is worth the wait for other operating systems.
Pushbullet is great if your students find that they need to “push” files or photos from their phone or tablet to their laptop/computer (and vice versa). Pushbullet makes it easy without having to move your file/photo to Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or DropBox first. And, since it is in the cloud, you can access your account from any device to retrieve previously pushed files. This is great if you have students taking photos or videos on their phones, but then need to add them to documents that they are editing on a computer.
If you want an easy app that allows all of your students to share, then this has to be the best app for that. It’s perfect for having students summarize their content or reflect on their learning. If they are using a phone or tablet, they’ll need to download the app; otherwise, they can use the webcam on their laptop to participate. Though I don’t recommend the paid version of many apps (I remember what it was like when my teacher budget was whatever I had in my pocket), this is definitely one app that is worth the price; consider getting others to join with you and you all can enjoy a discounted price. Even without the additional features in the paid version, this is a super app!
malistic environment, which is not too taxing to the hardware. 
Every teacher in a school can have a computer but, when it comes to students, some institutions may find it hard to give each child his/her own device. Because everything on Chromebooks is stored on the web, they can be passed around from one learner to the next, with no direct trace of what a previous user was doing. All you need to do is use 
ting, and they’re not really useful when offline. 
The purpose of this certification is to help educators build foundational skills in using their Chromebook as an effective learning tool in the classroom. As you go through the course, you will also be introduced to several of the Google Suite of tools to promote collaboration and critical thinking, and you will be provided opportunities to apply it to your content area or grade level. The capstone project for this certification is a lesson plan implementing some of the learned skills and tools within the grade level and content area of your choice.
The purpose of this certification is to help educators build foundational skills in using the iPad as an effective learning tool in the classroom. As you go through this course, you’ll learn how best to use the features of the iPad to differentiate and support student learning. The capstone project for this certification is a lesson plan implementing some of the learned skills, features, and apps within a grade level and content area of your choice.