Chrome Apps and Extensions Best for Elementary School
IXL
Immediate feedback and breadth a huge plus, despite emphasis on drills
Bottom Line: Students can improve targeted skills by using practice modules in moderation.
Raz-Kids
Leveled readings with progress-tracking enhances differentiated reading program
Bottom Line: It's worth considering as a supplement to your reading program thanks to the book variety, assigning and assessing, and progress reports.
Seesaw
Versatile digital portfolio appeals to teachers, students, and parents
Bottom Line: A powerful multimedia learning and communication tool that demonstrates student progress over time.
Matific
Engaging supplemental resource encourages conceptual understanding
Bottom Line: An engaging conceptual supplement for math lessons with easy-to-find standards-aligned activities.
Freckle
Standards-aligned, adaptive, core subject materials with lots of support
Bottom Line: It's rich with content-aligned assessments, worksheets, and progress analytics, so mindful teachers will find it a valuable resource to promote skills mastery through practice.
Storybird
Social storytelling site helps kids create, publish storybooks
Bottom Line: A great fit for teachers looking to develop students' writing and digital citizenship skills through storybook creation.
Edpuzzle
Crop, customize, and remix online video content with interactive tool
Bottom Line: As a tool for the flipped classroom or for student-led creation, a cool tool for teachers to create and share engaging video content.
Chrome Apps and Extensions Best for Middle School
CK-12
STEM and social studies resource with highly customizable content
Bottom Line: Making content accessible to kids with different learning styles, CK-12 could be the key to students understanding STEM topics.
Edulastic
Powerful standards-based assessment tool tracks student progress
Bottom Line: An efficient platform -- especially for test prep -- that helps teachers track student progress on standards mastery.
Newsela
Great stories, just-right leveled reading; now mostly by subscription
Bottom Line: While pricey, Newsela has ascended into an all-in-one destination for leveled, non-fiction reading.
Blendspace
Create multimedia lessons with simple online interface
Bottom Line: It's a good tool for bringing together lots of multimedia resources, but teachers will need to be mindful of content quality and lesson flow.
WriQ
Writing support tool helps teachers track progress and give feedback
Bottom Line: This extension gives students useful, immediate feedback to make some improvements and save teachers time, but it lacks substantive instruction.
Snap&Read
Nifty app can be used to increase text accessibility for all readers
Bottom Line: It's a helpful tool for making text easier to manage, but some of the features could use refinement.
StudySync
Superb ELA resource features engaging activities, stellar support
Bottom Line: An exceptional, ever-growing resource for helping your students become close readers, careful writers, and critical thinkers.
Tynker
Approachable and powerful coding curriculum with a lot of support
Bottom Line: Tynker empowers students of all ages and experience levels to create custom coding projects for a variety of platforms.
Canva for Education
Create, collaborate, and share with versatile design tool
Bottom Line: From interactive presentations to group collaboration to parent communication, Canva is a one-stop shop for a variety of classroom tasks.
TED-Ed
Support kids' sense of wonder with outstanding short video lessons
Bottom Line: TED-Ed includes excellent, engaging videos and support for flipped-class lessons with an incredible community of thinkers and doers.
Chrome Apps and Extensions Best for High School
PlayPosit
Interactive video creator has great question variety
Bottom Line: This tool strikes a nice balance, offering teachers an easy intro to interactive video mixed with a large set of features that can lead to increasingly sophisticated lesson design.
ThinkCERCA
Structured literacy program inspires deep analysis, thoughtful writing
Bottom Line: This is an expertly scaffolded and pedagogically sound resource for developing critical reading and writing skills.
Desmos
Powerful graphing calculator deepens understanding with visualization
Bottom Line: Desmos combines interactivity, visualization, personalization, and collaboration to deepen students' understanding of geometry and graphing concepts.
InsertLearning
Useful Chrome extension lets teachers add interactivity to websites
Bottom Line: A potential go-to tool for teachers focused on building critical reading skills, especially those in Chromebook classrooms.
Grammarly
Helpful tips support the writing process, build confidence
Bottom Line: A flexible tool that -- with teacher guidance -- students can use for both quick fixes and more in-depth writing improvement.
Tinkercad
Amazingly simple yet powerful online CAD tool turns kids into makers
Bottom Line: Full-featured site and app make iterative 3D design accessible, social, and relevant.
Brilliant
Challenge top students with self-guided math, science, and CS courses
Bottom Line: This learning and practice site can be an exciting challenge for passionate, independent students but may be too much for struggling kids.
Kaizena
Nifty add-on enables audio and text feedback in Google Docs
Bottom Line: If your classroom relies a lot on Google Docs, this might just be the feedback tool you're looking for.
