Take a Narrated Tour of the Solar System

3D Solar System Web is a neat website that I discovered through the Chrome web store. 3D Solar System Web features a narrated tour of the solar system beginning at the sun and working out through all of the planets. The tour explains the classifications of each planet, how long it takes each planet to orbit the sun, and each planet's unique features.

Applications for Education
In addition to the narrated tour of the solar system 3D Solar System Web gives visitors the option to manually zoom through the solar system. Clicking on a planet's name in the menu will reveal some basic information about it. 3D Solar System Web could be a good place for students to find some introductory or review information about the solar system.

Save Your Gmail Attachments in Google Drive

If you're looking for an easy way to save and organize the PDF, Word, and other file attachments you receive in Gmail, try Gmail to Drive. Gmail Attachments to Drive is a Chrome extension that you can use to have your attachments automatically saved in your Google Drive account. See how it works in the Tekzilla video below.



Applications for Education
If you accept emailed assignment submissions from your students, Gmail to Drive could be a great tool to help you organize those submissions. Set up a folder in your Google Drive account just for attachments to keep track of the files your students send to you.

Seven Chrome Apps for Students to Use Offline

Earlier this week Google added a new section off featured offline apps in the Chrome Web Store. The section of offline apps is quite large. I went through and picked out seven free offline Chrome Web Apps that could be useful for teachers and students.

The Daum Equation Editor is a free, online tool for quickly writing equations that you can save as text or images to use in documents. You can use the equation editor by typing on your keyboard and or selecting symbols from the Daum Equation Editor's menu.

Magic Scroll is a Chrome web app that you can use to read ePub files on your desktop or laptop even if you do not have an internet connection.

Quick Note is a sticky note application that runs in your Chrome web browser. You can take notes offline in your browser and sync when you reconnect to the web. If you utilize the Chrome syncing option, you can access your notes from any computer. Quick Note can sync with Diigo too.

Useful Periodic Table is a reference app for chemistry students. Useful Periodic Table contains the information high school chemistry students need. The app also includes some practice quiz activities.

If you or your students struggle to come up with strong passwords, Password Chameleon is an app to try. This app will generate a random, secure password for any site that you visit.

Geo Notepad is a Chrome application that offers a different take on reminders and notes. While most note-taking and reminder services are based on time stamps, Geo Notepad is based on location. When you write notes, you can assign them to locations. Then when you return to that location Geo Notepad will show you a list of your notes from that place. For example, I could create a list of notes that are tied to my house and a list tied to school. Then when I get to school in the morning Geo Notepad will open the list of school-based notes for me.

If you're a frequent user of Google Docs like I am, you will want to install the Chrome App for Google Docs. The Chrome App for Google Docs allows you to edit your documents when you're not online. When you reconnect to the web your documents will be synced to your Google Docs online account.

Provide Tech Help Remotely via Chrome Remote Desktop

Yesterday, I received an email with a question about how to remotely help students and teachers with the Chrome browser and with Chromebooks. Almost as if he was reading my mind, later in the day Fred Delvental shared a bookmark for the Chrome Remote Desktop App. Using the Chrome Remote Desktop App (still in beta) you can grant access to your computer to another person who also has the Chrome Remote Desktop App installed.

If you want to share your desktop just click "share now" and Chrome Remote Desktop will generate an access code to give to the person who will access your computer.

To access and control another person's computer you just need to enter the access code that they provide to you.

Applications for Education
The Chrome Remote Desktop app could be very helpful in aiding teachers and students when they get stuck trying to accomplish a task on their computers.

Work With Up To 31 Days of Gmail Messages While Offline

Yesterday, on the Official Gmail Blog, Google announced a couple of nice enhancements to the Offline Google Mail Chrome Web App. Now you can choose to synchronize seven, fourteen, or thirty-one days of Gmail messages to work with offline. When you use the Offline Google Mail Chrome Web App you can read and respond to messages without an Internet connection. Then when you reconnect to the Internet your mail will be synced and your messages sent.

Another nice enhancement add to the Offline Google Mail Chrome Web App is support for attachments. Now not only will your messages be downloaded and synced, the attachments to your messages will be too.

Applications for Education
Offline Google Mail Chrome Web App is a great resource for anyone who wants to be able to work with their email even when their disconnected from the web.

Daum Equation Editor - An Equation Editor in Your Browser

On the home page of the Google Chrome Web Store this morning I saw the Daum Equation Editor. The Daum Equation Editor is a free, online tool for quickly writing equations that you can save as text or images to use in documents. You can use the equation editor by typing on your keyboard and or selecting symbols from the Daum Equation Editor's menu.

Here is a short video demonstration of the Daum Equation Editor.


Applications for Education
If you or your students need to write-out equations on a computer, but you're not sure which keyboard combinations produce which symbols, the Daum Equation Editor could be a handy tool for you.

Even More Great Chrome Tools for Schools

On Wednesday and Thursday I posted information about useful Google Chrome extensions and Web Apps for teachers. Yesterday, I found a great blog post by Molly Schroeder full of great information about using Google Chrome in your school. In Life After Internet Explorer Molly offers lists of her favorite Chrome extensions and web apps. More importantly, Molly included a slideshow titled Customizing Chrome for the Classroom. In the slideshow, which you can download for your personal use, you will find step-by-step directions to help teachers get familiar with the features of Chrome and some of the apps that Molly listed in her blog post.

If you're not sure what a browser extension is, watch the video below.

Insert Text - Win the Battle Against Inbox Overload

Everyday brings a new round of Man vs. Email to my life. Some days "Man" wins and other days "Email" wins. Now I have a new weapon in this battle and its name is Insert Text.

Insert Text is a Google Chrome Extension that allows you to right-click on any field in your email or other web form and insert a chunk of text from your personal library of saved text. Insert Text allows you to build a library of sentences and paragraphs that you use frequently. Then when you need to use one of those sentences in an email just right-click and select the sentence you want to use.

If you read the reviews of Insert Text on the Chrome Web Store, you might notice that some people had trouble using this extension to insert text. I did at first too until I restarted my browser after my initial installation of the extension. So if you install Insert Text, I recommend restarting your browser before trying to use Insert Text.

Applications for Education
If you send out week-in-review emails to your students' parents you probably have a few phrases that you frequently use in those emails. Save yourself some time and use Insert Text to construct those emails.

Do you have a favorite time-saving app? If so, please leave a comment.

Speak It - Text to Speech in Google Chrome

Speak It is a Google Chrome extension that enables you to have the text on most webpages read to you. With Speak It installed just highlight the text on a the page you're viewing then right-click to activate Speak It. Then click the play button to have the text read to you. The voice is very digitized, but it is clear.

Installing Speak It takes just a few seconds. To install it go to Speak It's page in the Chrome Web Store and click the install button. Restarting your browser is not required in order to activate Speak It. If you decide that you don't want to use Speak It any longer you can uninstall it by right-clicking on the Speak It icon in your browser and selecting uninstall.

A video demonstration of Speak It is embedded below.


Applications for Education
Speak It isn't a perfect text to speech app, but it is adequate for having webpages read to students. For the student that needs to hear a word pronounced or needs a sentence read to him or her for clarification, Speak It could be a handy extension to have installed in Google Chrome.

Draw It Live - A Simple, Free, Collaborative Whiteboard

Draw It Live is a nice little website that I discovered this morning while exploring the Chrome Web Store. Draw It Live offers a free space for you to instantly create a collaborative whiteboard to use with anyone you like. To use Draw It Live just go to the site, click the "collaborative whiteboard" link, enter any nickname you want, then start drawing. You can invite people to draw with you by sending them the url assigned to your whiteboard. Draw It Live provides a chat box that you can use to talk to your collaborators about what each of you is doing on the screen.

Draw It Live offers a Chrome Web App called Simple Whiteboard that can be used offline. Of course, when you're using it offline you cannot collaborate with anyone.

Applications for Education
Draw It Live could be a good free tool for students to use for online brainstorming sessions. They could use the whiteboard space to develop mind maps from scratch. Simple Whiteboard could be a handy little tool for students who need quickly sketch a diagram or picture to use in a presentation.

Use Gmail, Docs, Google Calendar Offline With the Chrome App

Last week Google launched the Offline Google Mail Chrome App. The app which is available for free in the Chrome Web Store will allow you to read and respond to messages in Gmail even if you don't have an Internet connection. When you get to a place where you do have an Internet connection your messages will be sent.

Items in your Google Docs and Google Calendar accounts can also be viewed offline now. Unfortunately, Google still hasn't made it possible for you to create new content in those services without an Internet connection. Hopefully that will appear soon.

Applications for Education
When I read about the new Google Mail Chrome App I immediately thought of my students who spend close to an hour on a school bus each morning and afternoon. The app could be useful for those students who want to get some work done during that time when they don't have Internet access.

Connected Mind - A Free Mind Mapping App in the Chrome Web Store

Connected Mind is a free mind mapping tool that you can find in the Google Chrome Web Store. Using Connected Mind you can create free-form mind maps or use a template. A lot of mind mapping tools lock you into using straight lines between elements, but Connected Mind is not one of them. Connected Minds allows you to create mind maps in any configuration that you like. As it is a Chrome Web Store app, Connected Mind allows you to save your work online using your Google Account credentials. The video below offers a demonstration of Connected Minds (there is not any sound in the video).



Applications for Education
Connected Mind could be a good app for students to use to develop mind maps from scratch or from an existing image or file they upload. In general, I find mind mapping to be a great exercise for students to do while planning a video project. I also use mind mapping when planning a lesson unit for my courses.

Speech to Text in Google Chrome

Speech recognition software can be very pricey, but adding a speech recognition option to your computer doesn't have to be expensive. If you use Google's Chrome web browser one of the apps you can add it to is a Speech Recognizer. The Speech Recognizer available through the Chrome Web Store is free and easy to use.  

To use the Chrome Speech Recognizer just install it from the Chrome Web Store, launch it, then click the microphone to start taking and recording your voice. The Speech Recognizer will type out your text when you finish recording. You can then copy and paste your text to the paragraph box below the Speech Recognizer or to a document you have open in Google Docs.

Applications for Education
The Speech Recognizer from the Chrome Web Store could be a good resource for students who, for a variety of reasons, might need assistance generating text documents on a computer.

H/T to Paul Hamilton for sharing this useful app.

Timer Tab - Create a Custom Timer to Use Online or Offline

Timer Tab is a free application offered through the Chrome Web Store and as a stand-alone website at timer-tab.com. As a Chrome app Timer Tab can be used online or offline. The website version of Timer Tab can only be used online. Both versions of Timer Tab offer a count-down timer, an alarm clock, and a stopwatch. For the count-down timer and the alarm clock you can select a video to play when time expires or when you've reached your specified alarm time. You do this by pasting the url of a YouTube video into the "alarm" field below the timer. Also in both versions of Timer Tab you can customize the background by specifying an image url.

Applications for Education
I often use a countdown timer in my classroom to time activities and to time breaks between activities. I find that using a timer helps me and my students maintain our focus better than if we just used a clock without an alarmed timer. Timer Tab could be a handy little timer tool that you can use anytime you have your laptop with you.