TOP PICKS | 26 TOOLS
Best Chrome Apps and Extensions for Students
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Chrome Apps and Extensions for Elementary School
IXL
Immediate feedback and breadth a major plus, despite emphasis on drills
Bottom line: Students can improve targeted skills with tons of practice modules and visually appealing tasks.
Grades: Pre-K–12
Price: Free to try, Paid Skill practice is free but limited to a small number of problems a day. After a 30-day free trial, classroom licenses start at $249 per class for 25 students and one subject. Individual, school, and district licenses are also available.
Raz-Kids
Solid choice for leveled readings and progress-tracking
Bottom line: Trusty -- if a tad dated -- tool for helping younger students become proficient in many aspects of reading.
Grades: K–3
Price: Free to try, Paid $109.95 per classroom for a one-year license. There are optional paid upgrades for the Learning A-Z suite of products (e.g., Reading A-Z), which are also offered as bundled collections.
Seesaw: The Learning Journal
Versatile digital portfolio appeals to teachers, students, and parents
Bottom line: A powerful multimedia learning and communication tool that demonstrates student progress over time.
Grades: K–12
Price: Free, Paid Seesaw Plus is $120 per year, and gives teachers more privacy options and other features. Seesaw for Schools, which includes school-wide reporting, is priced per student.
Matific
Engaging supplemental resource encourages conceptual understanding
Bottom line: A fun and engaging conceptual supplement for math lessons with easy-to-find standards-aligned activities.
Grades: K–6
Price: Free, Free to try, Paid Teachers can sign up for free. Parents interested in using Matific at home can sign up for a free trial, and then pay $30 per year.
Freckle
Target standards-based skills with dynamic practice and assessments
Bottom line: Rich with content-aligned assessments, activities, printable worksheets, and progress analytics, this valuable resource promotes skills mastery through practice.
Grades: K–8
Price: Free, Paid Free with limited features. School Edition contains more content and data/analytic tools.
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.
Grades: K–12
Price: Free, Paid Teachers create accounts for free with unlimited classes and students. Finished stories are available for purchase. Curriculum and some premium extras are available for $4.99 per student.
Edpuzzle
Crop, customize, and remix online video content with interactive tool
Bottom line: As a flipped classroom or student creation tool, there are lots of opportunities for use, but teachers will need to be creative if they want students to engage.
Grades: 3–12
Price: Free, Paid The basic version is free. The Pro Teacher plan is in development but is slated to cost $6.50 per month. The Pro School plan starts at $55 per month (call for quote).
Chrome Apps and Extensions for Middle School
CK-12
Super STEM resource with highly accessible content
Bottom line: Making STEM content accessible to kids with different learning styles, CK-12 could be the key to mastery for some students.
Grades: K–12
Price: Free
Edulastic
Powerful formative assessment tool tracks achievement of standards
Bottom line: Efficient platform supports teachers who are expected to assess and track student progress on meeting standards.
Grades: K–12
Price: Free, Paid An optional $100 per year upgrade adds advanced reporting and extras like text-to-speech, shareable rubrics, presentation mode, and more. The enterprise version -- which adds school- and district-wide reports, SIS and LMS integration, and custom PD -- is available but pricing isn't public.
TES Teach with Blendspace
Create multimedia lessons with engaging but not-so-interactive style
Bottom line: Blendspace allows you to incorporate lots of multimedia resources but can still be confusing for students.
Grades: 3–12
Price: Free
Newsela
Absorbing daily news stories offer kids just-right learning content
Bottom line: Up-to-date, high-interest articles meet students right at their level: Use this robust tool to bolster students' nonfiction reading practice.
Grades: 2–12
Price: Free, Paid There's a "Pro" subscription targeted at schools, but pricing information isn't public; interested teachers and districts can contact them for more information.
StudySync
Superb ELA resource has comprehensive coverage, tons of supports
Bottom line: StudySync offers a complete core literacy program for secondary schools, making it easy to recommend, especially for teachers new to digital platforms.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free to try A one-year subscription is $16.47 per student. The student reading and writing companion bundles cost $111.24 and are available per grade level as a 6-year subscription.
Tynker
Cute, colorful coding platform caters to strong independent readers
Bottom line: Students will be empowered by custom-coding creations for a variety of platforms, but may need some reading support to complete lessons.
Grades: 3–8
Price: Free to try, Paid Plans and pricing vary widely. K-8 pay-per-course is $399 for 30 students; K-8 school plans for 400-800 students range from $2,600-$3,800. Quotes for district-wide plans are also available.
Canva - Photo Editor & Design
Create snazzy designs in seconds with flexible, cloud-based tool
Bottom line: A flexible, accessible way to get kids -- especially design novices -- creating digitally in your classroom if you have stable internet and time to get students set up to be successful.
Grades: 4–12
Price: Free
TED-Ed
Support kids' sense of wonder with outstanding short videos
Bottom line: Excellent, engaging videos and support for flipped-class lessons with an incredible community of thinkers and doers.
Grades: 4–12
Price: Free
Google Art Project
Massive online global collection makes art accesible to all
Bottom line: Extensive access to the world's cherished art collections gives teachers a glimpse at the future of arts education.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free
Chrome Apps and Extensions for High School
PlayPosit
Simple design makes it easy to jump into interactive video
Bottom line: With features that are both basic and useful, it's an easy tool to learn; adding interactivity to video is a snap.
Grades: 2–12
Price: Free, Paid Basic accounts are free. Optional premium features are $96/year and include the ability to copy and edit other teachers' content, the ability to crop video, more question types, student-created content, printable worksheets, grade exporting, and advanced student data.
Edmodo
Manage classes, content, and communication with social LMS platform
Bottom line: This free platform allows for teacher-monitored classroom communication but lacks excitement.
Grades: 4–12
Price: Free This website is free to use for all features, but it does contain advertisements on the teacher side.
ThinkCERCA
Well-structured lessons encourage deep analysis, thoughtful writing
Bottom line: This is a ready-to-go, research-backed resource that focuses intently on CCSS-aligned and AP-level critical reading and writing skills.
Grades: 3–12
Price: Free, Paid Free Basic version limited to four grade band-based differentiation levels, short reading lessons, and multiple-choice assessments. Paid Premium version adds 10 levels of differentiation (grades 3-12), more in-depth and varied lessons, writing benchmarking, rubrics, data dashboards, and more. Contact for a quote.
Chalkup
Elegant LMS tool keeps classroom conversation, collaboration going
Bottom line: The rare LMS designed for ease of use, and it doesn't sacrifice functionality with tons of opportunities to maximize learning, collaboration, and organization.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free, Paid Individual teacher accounts are free. Contact for school/district pricing.
Desmos
Elegant graphing calculator and math simulations promote collaboration
Bottom line: Innovative calculator and simulations are a standout graphing option for inquiry-driven math.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
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.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free to try, Paid The limited trial includes five docents. After that, it's $40/year or $8/month. School and district pricing is available; contact DocentEDU for details.
Grammarly
Helpful tips support the writing process and build confidence
Bottom line: A helpful site to check grammar and plagiarism, and a good tool for understanding errors and how to fix them.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free, Paid Grammarly's editor is a free tool. However, a premium version can also be purchased; monthly, quarterly, and annual pricing plans are offered at $29.95/mo., $19.98/mo., $11.66/mo., respectively.
Tinkercad
Amazingly simple yet powerful online CAD tool turns kids into makers
Bottom line: A big step forward in making iterative 3D design more accessible and social.
Grades: 3–12
Price: Free
Brilliant
Challenge top students with adaptive math and physics problems
Bottom line: This leveled physics and math problem site can be an exciting challenge for passionate students, but may be too much for struggling students.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free to try, Paid Limited intro courses are free. Premium subscriptions are $9.99 per month (if billed annually), $24.99 per month (if billed monthly), and $599.99 for a lifetime membership. Pro subscriptions are $29.99 per month and add Q&A features.
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.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free Free for teachers.
