DISQUS

Tim Childers · 1 year ago

I downloaded Chrome almost immediately when it was announced and have found that I love nearly every aspect of it. It does have some limitations that cause me to still favor FireFox for the time being. However, when developers start creating add-ons for some of my favorite FireFox tools, I may be sold permanently. You've put together a great list. Thanks for sharing!

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

It took me a while to get chrome installed - I had trouble with it on my XP
machine. It is a good "lite" browser.

Melissa Ross · 1 year ago

I actually started using Chrome about two days ago and I love it. (I am trying to get some of my fellow "geeks" at school on board. ) Thanks for the post - I think this will help convince them.

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

Yes, Melissa - it is tough to get even "geeks" to try new things and many of
the things listed here took digging and experimenting. It is another great
tool to have in the toolbox and with where things are heading, they might as
well go ahead and learn some about Chrome, it is going to become useful for
us.

Paul Hamilton · 1 year ago

Thanks for the excellent review of Chrome, Vicki. Chrome does indeed have much to recommend it.

The lack of add-ons for Chrome is a major concern for me, and I'm not referring to the cool add-ons that enhance productivity or facilitate convenience.

I believe that Firefox needs to be available to ALL learners because of the add-ons that that facilitate access to the internet for learners with special challenges. Functional access to the web really must be available to all, and Firefox add-ons help to overcome many barriers.

For example, there is ClickSpeak that provides text-to-speech for learners with reading challenges. FireVox allows blind web users to navigate the web and to have web pages read aloud. Accessibar facilitates access for web users with low vision.

Since the code for Chrome is open source, I hope that add-ons will be developed to make Chrome even more accessible than Firefox. Until then, I believe we need to do everything we can to make Firefox available to learners everywhere.

I'm frequently frustrated by schools that insist on use of Internet Explorer, which is much less accessible to learners with special needs.

--Paul

Jennifer Dorman - Cliotech · 1 year ago

Thanks for the great review of Chrome. I've been hesitant to test it, but think I'll try it out. I have been having such spotty issues with Firefox 3.

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

Firefox 3 has a few bugs, although firefox is still my favorite web browser,
to me Chrome has use past Internet Explorer. Sometimes I have trouble w/ IE
and firefox on sites and so will use Chrome as an alternative.

Not sure if I should have gotten Chromium or Chrome, but for now am happy.
Hoping an open sourcer will come by and let me know which is better.

legoless · 1 year ago

I still prefer Firefox. Chrome is too... plain.

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

;-) Chrome is plain -- of course chromium already has some interfaces that
let you customize how it looks! For those who have memory issues or are
troubleshooting websites, it does have handy tools. Don't think it is a bad
thing to have it handy just in case. Also, am planning to use it to launch
apps like Google docs for my teachers. Looking to see how the shortcut
looks and how I can deploy Chrome on a network for this reason. Making Web
apps seem like computer apps is very attractive.

Tom Daccord · 1 year ago

I agree, Vicky. A cell phone is a simple and effective tool to record classroom conversation. I think it's also a particularly useful means of capturing student ideas and commentary on school trips and excursions. I've used it with students and have created a web page with "mobcasting" ideas and an excerpt from my classroom:
http://edtechteacher.org/mobilepodcasting.html

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

Tom -- Interesting ter -- "mobcasting" -- never heard it. I LOVE Gcast and
have recorded some conversations with my students and daughter - I'll have
to look at what you're using and doing to have this happen in your
classroom.

Cell phones are so useful! I'm using them more and more in my own
classroom.

Mathew · 1 year ago

Thanks for your thorough review. I look forward to trying Chrome on the Mac when it's released. Safari is still my browser of choice for the moment though I still need Firefox to help when there are Safari incompatibilities.

film fan · 1 year ago

i keep learning about more and more advantages and features with Chrome, with privacy, for example; now if only they would take care of it's cookie management glitches...

coolcatteacher · 1 year ago

@film fan

Cookie management glitches -- I'd like to know more about this -- I haven't
seen this happen yet, but would love to know more.

I did have trouble installing it on XP -- couldn't make it go on there.

bodyrox · 1 year ago

Thank you so much for the information! I have some questions regarding Teacher Unions and would really appreciate some information. I'm new to the profession and want to know if you find you benefit from membership to a union, and which one you recommend.
If you have any information on benefits for teachers and where to look for them, please let me know.
Also, I recently joined a website launching soon, I was asked to be a test user so I was able to see what it will be like. It is supposed to be similar to facebook in social utility functionalities, but it will contain a vast amount of resources and discounts for teachers. It's called Applebatch, and it has a job search engine in it. Oh, and it is free!
www.applebatch.com
Thank you for the comments and I hope to hear back!

Vicki A. Davis · 1 year ago

@bodyrox - I'm at a small private school and so am not part of a "union."

There are several great organizations, however, that advocate for technology education -- ISTE is one of my favorites and I'm also a member of CUE.