Firefox: Extensions for Educators
A few weeks back on The Thinking Stick, I asked the edublogosphere to help me come up with 5 Firefox extensions every educator should have installed.
Firefox is becoming the web browser of choice for many. Here in China it is fast, stable, and secure. Three things everyone wants from their web browser. The power of Firefox comes from being an open-source program. Free to download and use and free for anyone to create extensions for. The Firefox community takes great pride in the fact that they feel they are creating a better web surfing experience for users. So, without further ado here are the extensions recommended by some in the edublogosphere.
My recommendations:
Del.icio.us extension: If you use delicious already, then you need to be using this extension. It makes using del.icio.us that much more fun (You can view a screencast on how to set up a del.icio.us account here and how to install and use the del.icio.us extension here).
Googlepedia extension: Once this extension is installed, every time you search using Google a relevant wikipedia page will show up beside your results.
Diigo extension: A great new research tool that I’m just starting to use. It syncs with del.icio.us or a host of other social-bookmarking sites, but also adds numerous other research functions. Clay Bruell of Beyond School has a great YouTube video on its use in education
Joe Poletti Favorites include:
Cooliris extension: Used to display link content without having to click on that link
Clipmarks extension: Used to preserve interesting bits from interesting articles in a social networking environment.
Foxmarks extension: Used to synch the favorites on my three computers.
Performancing extension: Used to launch my blog as soon as I find an item of interest upon which I want to comment.
CiteBite extension: Used to take audience to exact location on URL I am referencing.
Sage extension: Used as an aggregator, although I still rely primarily on Google Reader.
Adblock plus extension: Enough said
Chris Craft’s Favorites include:
Greasemonkey extension: A crucial for addon scripts
Permatabs extension: Lets you mark a tab “permanant” so it cannot be closed. Useful if you keep two tabs (bloglines and gmail) open at all times and want them opened automatically when you start Firefox)
Flickrfox extension: Flickr photos in a sidebar.
mrc’s Favorite:
My number one extension, by far, is ReloadEvery. Without it, I would have to log in to PowerSchool every period in order to take attendance! But if I set it to reload the page every 5 minutes, the server keeps my session open.
Michael Richards’ Favorite:
I’m fond of TextMarker so I can highlight the interesting stuff I might be reading, then I’ll launch Performancing to blog.
Reece’s Favorites:
Firstly, I’d recommend Gmarks. I know that Google’s bookmark service does not include the community sharing tools that delicious does, but to avoid students and teachers from saying “not another account” or “I don’t remember my password” I’ve decided to start with Web 2.0 tools that are available through Google accounts, which by the way are great.
The other one I’d recommend is IE Tab. The reason I’d recommend this one is because there are sites, on occasion, that do not display or run properly in Firefox and although this is rare, it does happen.
So what extensions would you add to the list?
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