The best Chrome extensions for Google Classroom can help to enhance the digital, hybrid, and physical classroom learning experience of students. These can also help make the lives of teachers much easier.
Chrome is a safe and secure browser that works on most devices, making it a great platform to work with both for students and teachers. It is ideal with Chromebooks in the classroom as well as at home where students can use their own devices.
The best Chrome extensions are often free and allow teachers to integrate app-like services within the browser. From extensions to help correct student's spelling and grammar to smart screen splitting for watching the video feed and presenting at the same time, there is an abundance of useful options.
We've narrowed down the very best Chrome extensions for use with Google Classroom so you can easily get going right away.
Best Chrome Extensions: Grammarly
Grammarly is a great Chrome Extension for students and teachers to use. The basic version is free, with a few premium options, and it works really well. This extension will check spelling and grammar anywhere that typing happens in Chrome.
That includes typing in a search bar, writing in a document in Docs, composing an email, or even working within other Chrome extensions. Errors get underlined in red so the student can see the mistake and how to correct it.
A really helpful feature here is that Grammarly will email the students a list of their most common mistakes for that week, along with writing statistics and areas of focus. Also useful for teachers to get a view on the week gone by.
Best Chrome Extensions: Kami
Kami is a great Chrome extension for any teacher who wants to go paperless. This allows you to upload PDFs from your desktop or via Google Drive, for editing digitally.
Annotate, mark, and highlight the PDF using a virtual pen before easily having it saved, ready to return to students digitally. A really useful system for use within the Google Classroom ecosystem.
Kami also allows you to setup a blank PDF that can be used as a virtual whiteboard – ideal for remote learning as it can be presented via Zoom or Google Meet, live.
Best Chrome Extensions: Dualless
Dualless is one of the best Chrome extensions for teachers as it's built for presentations. It allows you to split your screen into two, with one half for the presentation that's being seen by others, and one half for your eyes only.
Dualless is a great way to present to a classroom remotely while still keeping an eye on the class by keeping the video chat windows open in the other section. Of course, the bigger the screen here, the better.
Best Chrome Extensions: Mote
Add voice notes and vocal feedback to student documents and notes with Mote. Rather than editing digitally, or even physically, you can simply add audio to student work submissions for them to listen to.
Mote is a great way to add a more personal touch to student work feedback. It also means a more clear explanation can be laid out quickly for students. Mote works on Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Classroom, and can transcribe audio with more than 15 languages supported.
Best Chrome Extensions: Screencastify
If you could benefit from recording your screen, then Screencastify is the Chrome extension for you. This works on a computer but can also be used in app from on smartphones. It lets you record the screen for up to five minutes at a time, in Chrome extension form, while being saved automatically to your Google Drive.
This is a great way to give students guidance on navigating a task. You can just record it and send that video, using a quick link, rather than having to write out an explanation. Since it's recorded, the student can refer back to it as often as needed.
Best Chrome Extensions: Reactions
Reactions is one of the best Chrome extensions for teachers that run remote learning instructions with Google Meet. This allows you to keep students muted but still get some feedback in the form of emojis.
You can then get some more interactivity, without slowing down instruction packing by going off topic. Students can use a simple thumbs-up, for example, if you want to get them to check-in so you know they're following along.
Best Chrome Extensions: Random Student Generator
The Random Student Generator for Google Classroom is a nice way to pick students to answer questions, in an unbiased way. Ideal for use in virtual classrooms in which perhaps layout can change, unlike in a physical room.
Since this is built for Google Classroom, the integration is great, allowing it to work with the roster of your class. You don't have to input any information as this will just work to pick out students, at random.
Best Chrome Extensions: Diigo
Diigo is a good tool for highlighting and annotating online text. Not only does this allow you to do that on the webpage, with it remaining when you come back another time, but it also saves all your work to an online account for access when you need.
This is useful both for students and teachers. Bookmark for reading later, archive highlights and stickies, screenshot to share pages, and markup all through this one extension that works across devices. So revisit on your phone and all the notes you made on your laptop will still be there.
