Making Life Easier with the Chrome App Launcher

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After taking a break last week for NDEA, this week I wanted to talk about a tool that is more about making life easier and more efficient for both teachers and students.  The Chrome App Launcher is a tool that I have only recently started using, and I am amazed at how much easier it is to access the things I need to get to easily and how much faster I can be using that instead of my Chrome Apps page.

Basically, the Chrome App Launcher allows you to launch your favorite and most frequently used apps right from your desktop instead of having to first open Chrome, go to your Apps page, scroll through your pages of Apps, and find the one you want.  Even if you are accessing something on your main apps page, for most of us we are talking at least 3 steps: launch the browser, click the apps button to get to your apps page, and then clicking the app.  The App Launcher allows you to access your apps faster by essentially putting the apps page access on your desktop.

In addition to making it easier to launch your apps, it also makes it easy to organize and find them.  If you have a lot of apps (I had three pages of them when I started), you can organize them into folders, making them easier to locate.  I now have folders for my Office apps, my personal apps, my educational tools, my new things to try, etc.  My most frequently used ones I left on their own on the main page to make access easier.  And if you still have a ton of apps even after organizing them, you can use the search bar at the top of the tool to search for specific apps.

But wait, there's more!  This tool does more than just allow you to organize and quickly access your apps. The search bar also allows you to do basic searches for simple questions or do a Google search that will then open in a browser.  I found the simple question searches helpful because you can search simple math questions and avoid having to open up a calculator on the computer, or simple conversion questions, which can be helpful in a math or FACs class, but also just for personal use.

Overall, this tool has a lot of potential just for making life easier.  Teachers and students can both use it to make working and using Google more efficient and to stay more organized. To get the App Launcher on your computer, do a search on your computer for Chrome App Launcher.  You should see the app launcher icon appear and you can either right click and choose "Pin to Taskbar" or drag it to your taskbar.  Then you are ready to go!