Open-resource coursework hands you an advantage and a trap in the same breath: your notes, your textbook, and the whole internet are fair game, but having a resource open is not the same as understanding it, and the gap shows the moment a question is reworded. Lensia is a Chrome extension built for closing that gap, and the piece you will lean on most is its sidebar chat: a panel that opens next to your material and stays there while you work a concept out message by message. When one line on the page stops you, a floating panel grabs it in a couple of seconds without pulling you out of what you are reading. Either way you end up learning the method, which is the only thing that survives an open-resource exam. Install Lensia free and set it up in about a minute.
Lensia is a study aid. Use it on practice problems, your own notes, and to check your work *after* you attempt it. Using it during a graded assessment where AI is restricted is academic dishonesty. This guide is about learning open-resource material well enough that you do not have to go hunting for it under pressure.
Start in the sidebar chat
Open the sidebar from your Chrome toolbar. Chrome's side panel opens right beside your reading, so your material and the conversation stay on screen together. It is on every plan.
The reason the sidebar is the main surface for open-resource work is that understanding rarely arrives in one message:
- Conversation history stays between sessions, so the thread where you finally understood a hard concept is still there the week of the exam.
- Bookmarks save the explanations you want to reread, so they are not lost in a long chat.
- A model picker lets you start a quick definition on a fast model and switch to a stronger one mid-thread when a proof or derivation needs more care.
Here is the loop that actually moves material from "I can look it up" to "I know it." Paste a passage or problem into the sidebar and ask for a plain-language explanation. Then ask it to generate two practice questions on the same idea. Attempt those cold, paste your answers back, and ask where you went wrong. That back-and-forth, all beside your notes, is worth more than an hour of re-skimming. For the habits that make it stick, read the study smarter guide.
What paid tiers add
The sidebar is free. Two upgrades help on denser courses. Web search and fetch URL let the AI pull a formula or source off the live web while it explains, or read a specific link you give it. Agent mode on Pro lets it chain steps inside the sidebar: read the notes open in your tab, take a fresh screenshot, look something up, then walk you through the result.
The floating panel: grab anything off the page
Not every question is worth a full conversation. Sometimes you are reading and one equation or definition stops you cold. Press Ctrl+Shift+X, drag a box around it, and a step-by-step explanation floats up on top of the page in about three seconds. The page stays visible underneath, and the panel is draggable so you can park it beside the problem.
Two things keep the panel from being a one-trick tool:
- Ask Mode is a switch on the same panel that turns it into a custom-question box. Type your own prompt and attach up to three images from your screen, which is handy for a case study or a passage that spans more than one screenshot.
- Quick Capture (
Ctrl+Shift+F) repeats your last capture area without redrawing the box, so a page of similar practice items takes one keypress each.
Press Ctrl+Shift+E to hide the panel entirely and bring it back. For the full picture of both surfaces, read how Lensia works.
Handling every kind of open-resource question
- Multiple choice: include every answer choice in your capture or paste, and ask the AI why one holds up and the others fall apart. You learn the reasoning, not a letter.
- Math and science: paste or capture the full problem with its given values, formulas, and units. Turn on reasoning mode (a single on/off toggle) for multi-step work, and compare the steps against your own. The full workflow is in AI for math homework.
- Short answer and essays: ask the sidebar to outline how a strong response is built, then draft your own and paste it back for a critique.
- Fill-in-the-blank: capture the whole sentence so the AI reads the surrounding context and explains the rule, not just the word.
Which plan fits open-resource studying
Every tier signs in with Google. Sign in once to activate.
Free covers the sidebar chat with history and bookmarks, the floating panel with Ask Mode, Quick and Standard models, and the Lensia Max router, which picks a fitting model per question and takes 15 percent off the cost. Basic adds about ten times the usage, reasoning mode, custom instructions, web search, fetch URL, and the Advanced models for the hardest problem sets. Pro has the highest allowance and adds agent mode in the sidebar plus Auto-Solve on Vocabulary.com. For a task-by-task tour, read the AI homework helper complete guide.
Start studying with real understanding
Run the loop once on your own notes and you will feel the difference. Install Lensia from the Chrome Web Store, sign in with Google, open the sidebar next to a concept you keep forgetting, and use Ctrl+Shift+X on the next thing that trips you up. Open-resource coursework stops being an hour of searching and starts being an hour of actually learning.
Install Lensia today and study your open-resource courses the way they are meant to be studied.