top 10 google docs & sheets add-ons for education
TRANSCRIPT
Google’s Add-ons features brings really useful Apps
Script based extensions to Docs & Sheets. Add-ons
are really easy to discover and install, and become
available across all Docs & Sheets when they are
installed. Add-ons enable educators to extend and
automate functionality of Docs & Sheets inside of
Google Apps for Education.
Let’s explore 10 Google Docs & Sheets Add-ons for
Education:
1. Doctopus
2. EasyBib Bibliography Creator
3. Flubaroo
4. Thesaurus
5. AutoCrat
6. Texthelp
7. Split Names
8. Lucidchart Diagrams
9. Twitter Curator
10. Kaizena Shortcut
www.synergyse.com
1) Doctopus for Google Sheets
● By New Visions Cloud Lab; created by veteran
science teacher and school administrator Andrew
Stillman
● Built with teacher workflow in mind
● “Doctopus gives teachers the ability to mass-copy
(from a starter template), share, and manage
grading and feedback for student projects in
Google Drive. Its tentacles copy and “hand out”
Drive files to a roster of students, giving teachers
full control over starter template, sharing
configuration, folder organization and file naming,
as well as visibility over all work in progress —
including the ability to bulk revoke and revert
student editing rights around submission deadlines.
www.synergyse.com
2) EasyBib Bibliography Creator
● By EasyBib
● “allows you to easily create a bibliography for
your research paper. Automatically cite
books, journal articles, and websites just by
entering in the titles or URLs. Format citations
in MLA, APA, and Chicago style. When you’re
finished creating your bibliography, click
Generate Bibliography and we’ll alphabetize
your citations and add them to the end of your
paper.”
www.synergyse.com
3) Flubaroo
● Designed for Google Sheets; created by Dave
Abouvav
● “Designed by a teacher, for teachers,
Flubaroo is easy to use. Try it today for your
assignments, quizzes, assessments, or even
an exam! Over 80,000 assignments are
graded each month! Within a minute you’ll be
able to: Get scores for each student, and
identify students in need of extra help. View
average score, and a histogram of scores.
Quickly identify questions which a majority of
the students missed. Email students their
scores, along with optional notes to the class
and/or to each student.”
www.synergyse.com
4) Thesaurus
● Designed for Google Docs; created by
Apps4Gapps
● “Thesaurus for Google Documents
revolutionizes your experience by helping you
explore synonyms, antonyms and more.”
● Great for both students and teachers looking
to expand the vocabulary used in their Docs
and want to quickly reference the Thesaurus.
www.synergyse.com
5) autoCrat● For Google Sheets; created by New Visions Cloud
Lab
● “Automates the creation and sharing of
personalized (e.g. merged) Google Docs or PDF
email attachments from columns of data in a
Google Sheet.
1. Create your merge template as a
Google Doc or Spreadsheet using any
formatting you like, and set placeholder
tags using a simple convention. (Example:
Dear <<First Name>>, …) 2. Match the
fields from your Sheet to the tags in your
doc.
3. Choose from among the various merge
settings (PDF or shared Google Doc) and
build a customized email message to
recipients using placeholder variables from
your sheet.
4. Preview your merge from the first data
row before running on all records.
www.synergyse.com
6) Texthelp Study Skills
● Created for Google Docs by Texthelp
● “Use Texthelp’s Highlighting Tools to
highlight key areas of your document to
collect, group, and learn from later. Simply
select and highlight the desired text and
click “Collect Highlights” to extract it and
place it in a new document (by color or
location) for students or educators to
review.
● Used by educators in the classroom to help
students identify and group key facts
together, indicate new words to learn, or
collect research to assist with studying.
Texthelp’s Highlighting Tools are great for
all content and grade levels.”
www.synergyse.com
7) Split Names
● Created for Google Sheets by AbleBits
● “Enable this add-on for your sheets if you
ever need to have first and last names in
different columns. You can complete this
task in a click: choose the name parts you
need and click “Split” to have them pulled
out to separate cells. That’s it! The add-on
recognizes over 80 titles and 40 post-
nominals; you can be sure you address
people appropriately.”
● Teachers can use this to split student
names for use in mail merging and other
tasks.
www.synergyse.com
8) Lucidchart Diagrams
● Created for Google Docs by Lucidchart
● “Lucidchart is an HTML5-based visual
collaboration tool that makes drawing
diagrams fast and easy. Work together with
an unlimited number of others to create and
edit diagrams in real time, with changes
merged and synced instantaneously.”
● Teachers can use Lucidchart Diagrams to
create Flowcharts and Mind Maps for
example with their students.
www.synergyse.com
9) Twitter Curator
● Created for Google Sheets by Amit
Agarwal
● “The Twitter Curator add-on for Google
Sheets lets you find and curate tweets right
inside a Google spreadsheets.”
● Have you ever attended a Google Apps for
Education conference and wanted to keep
track of all the great content being shared
on Twitter? This is a great way to keep
track of trending hashtags and useful links
automatically.
www.synergyse.com
10) Kaizena Shortcut
● Created for Google Docs by Kaizena
● “Kaizena makes it easy for teachers to give
high quality audio feedback on student
work – simply highlight and speak to give
verbal feedback, or attach reusable
resources for common problems. This Doc
Add-on allows you to quickly open the
Google Doc you’re currently viewing in
Kaizena, which is very useful if you’re using
workflow tools that link directly to a Google
Doc such as Doctopus.”
www.synergyse.com
