Thing 5: Google Chrome

I opened up Newsela right away.  It's a site I used awhile back with my kids.  Then I got away from using it because it went through some "upgrades" that made it a little more challenging to navigate.  Boy am I glad I went back to it!  I absolutely love that you can modify the reading materials to meet your needs.  I find that so refreshing.  Kids can read the same material but at differing levels.  They'll be able to have a solid conversation because they all accessed it on their own level.  Great stuff!

While I was in Newsela, BeeLine Reader started up.  I was a little put off by it at first, I must admit, but as I adjusted, I really started liking it.  Mine was set to "bright", "enable auto-color" and "auto-color this site".  It looks like this:

I started reading and was actually really pleased with how much easier this was on my eyes.  This got me to start playing with BeeLine a little more.  The "OpenDyslexic Font" button created an interesting combo of font and colors.  I found myself being able to read much easier, and I wonder what someone diagnosed with dyslexia would think while reading it.  Good stuff!  Has anyone used this with kids?

Finally, I checked out AdBlock. Seems like it blocks ads from coming up on my screen.  This is great because I accidentally changed a setting or downloaded something bad, and if I use Safari I get all kinds of pop up ads.  This extension on Chrome is really great!

After only a few days (and being a Safari supporter for years), I'm happily changing to Chrome!  Today as I was doing work for AIL I made sure to do it all from Chrome.  It's so much faster and I love the little added on bonus features.