Free! READING WITH CHROME: What's the preferred browser for your school or classroom? Chances are any lingering dinosaurs are running some flavor of Internet Explorer (and suffering from toolbar overload). But if the students have any say, or if you're running with Google Apps for Education, you likely have a sizable number of Google Chrome users. This slideshare from Charles Miglietti breaks down seven plug-ins for Chrome that make consuming web content considerably easier. Some of these tools including Pocket, Buffer, and RSS may be familiar-- they're all available on other platforms like iOS and remain popular for curating and aggregating content in any context. But the remaining plug-ins can provide real value, especially in blended environments where screen time isn't trivial. Clearly, for example, strips all unnecessary page elements out of view, liberating your reading from ads or distractions. Tl;dr (too long; didn't read) provides quick summaries of web pages (written by people, not bots) akin to the abstracts students would normally read when beginning a research process. For inefficient "webizens," TooManyTabs ensures that you'll never again lose track of which tabs are being used for learning (and where you, oh, say, found that silly animated GIF). And perhaps most important for heavy readers, High Contrast inverts the colors for any web page, creating an adhoc "night mode" for weary eyes.
