This week I’m taking a few days off to ski, play with my dogs, visit with friends and family, and generally recharge my batteries. If you’re on vacation this week too, I hope that you’re having a great vacation. While I’m away I’m rerunning the most popular posts of the year. The selections are based on pageviews during 2012.

If you’re one of the people that made the switch to Chrome in 2012, here are some extensions and Chrome web apps that you and your students should find handy.

Printliminator is a handy little bookmarklet for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Printliminator allows you to highlight a webpage and select only the elements which you wish to print. You can install Printliminator in seconds by just clicking and dragging it into your browser’s toolbar. Watch the video below to learn more about Printliminator.

Speech recognition software can be very pricey, but adding a speech recognition option to your computer doesn’t have to be expensive. The Speech Recognizer, available through the Chrome Web Store, is free and easy to use. To use the Chrome Speech Recognizer just install it from the Chrome Web Store, launch it, then click the microphone to start taking and recording your voice. The Speech Recognizer will type out your text when you finish recording. You can then copy and paste your text to the paragraph box below the Speech Recognizer or to a document you have open in Google Docs.

A Cleaner YouTube is a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Once installed A Cleaner YouTube allows you to display YouTube videos without any of the “related videos,” comments, or display advertising. There are other tools that do the same thing, but what makes A Cleaner YouTube different is that not only can you display videos without the related materials, but you can also search YouTube without viewing any of the “related videos,” comments, suggested videos, or advertisements.

Graph.tk is a free online graphing utility that I found in the Google Chrome Web Store. Graph.tk allows you to plot multiple functions through its dynamically resizing grid. To graph an equation on Graph.tk just click the “+” symbol to enter a new equation. Click here to watch a short video of Graph.tk in use. One thing that the video doesn’t show and isn’t clear the first time you use Graph.tk is that you need to delete the existing default equations before you start.

Google Related is a new extension for the Google Chrome Browser that will display related links on the webpage that you’re currently viewing. Here’s how it works; conduct a Google search as you normally would then when you open a webpage Google Related will display some suggested items at the bottom of the page. Watch the video below to see it in action.

Google Related is also available as part of the Google browser toolbar.

Snapify is a free Google Chrome extension that allows you to highlight a word or phrase on any webpage and quickly find more information about that word or phrase. Here’s how it works; with Snapify installed you simply highlight a word then click “Snap It.” When you click “Snap It” a dialogue box appears with information from Wikipedia, Google Search results, YouTube Videos, Tweets mentioning your highlighted word, and a Google Map.

Speak It is a Google Chrome extension that enables you to have the text on most webpages read to you. With Speak It installed just highlight the text on a the page you’re viewing then right-click to activate Speak It. Then click the play button to have the text read to you. The voice is very digitized, but it is clear. Installing Speak It takes just a few seconds. To install it go to Speak It’s page in the Chrome Web Store and click the install button. Restarting your browser is not required in order to activate Speak It. If you decide that you don’t want to use Speak It any longer you can uninstall it by right-clicking on the Speak It icon in your browser and selecting uninstall. A video demonstration of Speak It is embedded below.

If you’re like me, you’re probably guilty of occasionally wasting time on Facebook and other social sites when you should be doing something more important. Stay Focused is a Chrome extension designed to help you stop wasting time on those sites and get your work done. With Stay Focused installed you can set a time limit for yourself on the sites that you tend to waste time on. Once you’ve used up your self-allotted time on those sites you won’t be able to revisit them in that browser until the next day (or other time you select).

ChromeVis is a Google Chrome extension designed to make it easier for people with vision impairments to read the content of webpages. When installed ChromeVis allows you to highlight the text on any webpage and have it enlarged and placed on an easy-to-read background. Your highlighted text appears in a pop-up box over the original page so that you can quickly go back to the original source if you want to. ChromeVis can be adjusted to meet your text size and text color preferences.

Google Dictionary provides an easy and quick way to find definitions for any word you find online. With Google Dictionary installed in Chrome you can highlight and click on any word to reveal its definition and hear it pronounced. In video below Tekzilla provides an overview of Google Dictionary.