Specialized Add-ons For Google Docs

Google Docs are already a wonderful tool to use in our classrooms. They allow us to work together and share our ideas with the world. But sometimes there are things that seem impossible to do in Google Docs. Before you give up and think that Docs just can't be used in your content area, check out some of these specialized add-ons.

• Yob Graph Editor-  Allows you to plot data and insert the graph into a Google Doc. It provides plotting and regression functionality inside of the Doc which makes it easier to work with.
  
• Easy Accents- Insert accents for different languages directly from the sidebar in a Google Doc.
  
• VexTab Music Notation- Designed for writability. Easily add music notation, guitar tablature, and drum notation to your documents. Vex Tab tutorial
  
• Auto-LaTeX Equations- Automatically convert mathematical equation in your doc into LaTeX images.
  
• Chord Transposer- Transposes a document containing chords for guitar,  piano, etc.
  
• Wizkids CAS- Use this add-on to plot graphs and solve equations. 

Molecularium: Molecule Building Game

My Molecularium is a new free game app that challenges players to build a wide variety of molecules. It is available at the Apple App Store and Google Play.

This app is part of the Molecularium Project, which is the outreach and education effort of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Nanotechnology Center. The mission of the Molecularium Project is to expand science literacy and get people of all ages excited about science.

Applications for Education
This is a fun and engaging way for students to learn about molecules and the world around them. Games are a great way to introduce and reinforce ideas.

Stelum: Things Made Simple

Stelum is a new collaborative platform to find and share simple explanations for complex ideas and topics. The purpose is to provide people with simple and easy to understand explanations of a wide variety of categories including science, technology, history, famous people, society, ideas, beliefs, and culture.

These ideas are explained on cards called Simplexes which anyone can write, but only the best are featured and promoted. Simplexes are a new way to work with information.

Applications for Education
Teachers could use Simplexes to introduce ideas to students. Students could use the site to learn about any number of topics.

5-Day Teacher Challenge

The 5-Day Teacher Challenge from Rushton Hurley, founder of Next Vista for Learning, is just wrapping up. The idea behind this challenge is to help teachers improve what they do with simple ideas, all while having some fun in the process. While this is the last day of the official challenge, there is no reason you can't work one or more of these challenges into your weekly routine.

Here are examples of some of the challenges:

• Select one of your challenging students and make a call to their home to report something good they have done. Keep it 100% positive. 
• Select an activity you are planning and give students the option to propose an alternative approach for them to demonstrate their mastery of the content. 
• Go for an entire day without raising your voice to improve how you communicate to optimize learning conditions in your classroom. 
• Find a teacher in your school and plan a team-teaching activity. 
• Find someone who helps make the school work well like a secretary, custodian, bus driver, or cafeteria worker and find a way to celebrate them. 

Students Evaluating Student Work,  Showing Learning at a Higher Level Through Vocabulary, Collecting Students' Insights, and a Student with Autism Explains Autism are some Rushton's guest posts.

Mercury Reader Chrome Extension

Mercury Reader is a Chrome extension that makes websites and articles easier for students to read. This extension strips away ads which can be distraction and it pulls the information from an article into one simple and easy to read document. Images will still appear in the new version and hyperlinks will still work just as they did in the original article. Mercury Reader allows the user to change the size of the text, adjust the font, and select either a light or dark theme. There is also an option to send the text to a Kindle.

Applications for Education 
This app is very useful for students (or anyone) who is easily distracted, need to enlarge text, or who might have a preference for light or dark backgrounds.