April 26, 2013 - Getting 'Googly' With It

Hello Everyone,

Last weekend I had the incredible opportunity to join with over 525 teachers, administrators and tech enthusiasts to learning about the possibilities of using Google Apps for Education in the classroom.  As a result, I would like to share a couple of the exciting apps and extensions we can use with the Google Chrome web browser. 

iSpeech   

iSpeech is an extension of the chrome browser which will read aloud any highlighted online text.  To install, open the Google Chrome web browser by clicking on the icon.  Search for ‘Chrome Web Store’ or go to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/for_your_domain

In the Chrome web store type ‘iSpeech’ in the search box on the upper left hand

side of the page.  The image at the right will appear.  Click on ‘Add to Chrome’ and a small icon will appear in the upper right hand corner next to the address bar. 

When you come across some text online that you wish to have read for you, simply highlight the text (left click and drag) and click on the icon in the address bar.  A small text box will appear and the text will be read aloud.  You can pause or stop the reading or change the options (male/female voice, reading speed, etc.) from this text box.  When the reading is complete you can choose to highlight additional text to be read or click anywhere on the screen to remove the box. 

This is a fantastic program for students who use Kurzweil or other text to speech programs or for beginner readers to read along with the text.

Print Friendly & PDF  

Frequently students will research a topic on Wikipedia or similar web pages and consequently print off numerous pages of information that they do not require.  Print Friendly is an extension which allows you to select and delete information on a web page so that you are only printing the text you desire.

As with iSpeech, you need to open the Google Chrome web browser by clicking on the icon.  Search for ‘Chrome Web Store’ or go to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/for_your_domain

In the Chrome web store type ‘Print Friendly’ in the search box on the upper left hand side of the page.  The Print Friendly extension will be about the fourth app down (see image at right)

Click on ‘Add to Chrome’ and a small icon will appear in the upper right hand corner next to the address bar.  Then when you have found a page of information that you would like printed, simply click on the icon and the webpage will open in a new window.  Then you can select different text sections, tables or images to delete until you have only the information you would like to print.  Then simply click on the print icon in the top row of you r page.  Additionally, you can create a PDF with the information (download and save to a folder or drive) or e-mail it to yourself or another person.  Hopefully this will save many trees as students will only print out the information that they TRULY need and desire.

I hope these are helpful for you!  If there are any questions or problems using any of the ideas I have suggested please feel free to contact me.

Thanks and enjoy the sun today!

Stace