Macros and add-ons are not required to play. They are meant to help with the gaming experience. The following are some basic Macros for shamans, and some very useful add-ons.
Macros
Macros are found in your options menu. You can only make 18 amount of macros for each character and then you can make 18 amount of macros that are common for all your characters on a realm. You can name the macro whatever you want, and then type the macro. I also recommend you go to the World of Warcraft forum and learn about how macros work. They can help you out greatly. The website is
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114
Smart Healing
This macro is designed to help with healing. It will heal your target first if it is friendly. It will then heal your target's target if that is friendly. And lastly, if none of the other criteria work, it heals the shaman casting it. You can replace Healing Wave, with Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal, Cure Poison, or Cure Disease:
#showtooltip Healing Wave
/cast [help] Healing Wave; [target=targettarget, help] Healing Wave; [target=player] Healing Wave.
Ghost Wolf/Mount/Flying Mount
This macro is designed to use Ghostwolf if you are in combat, and then your regular mount if you are in old world, or your flying mount if you are in outlands, with another click it also dismounts you:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance] [combat, nomounted] Ghost Wolf
/use [nostance, nocombat, nomounted, flyable] <flying mounts name>
/use [nostance, nocombat, nomounted] <mounts name>

/dismount [mounted]

Add-ons
Add-ons are files that you use for all kinds of things. Below I am going to list what I consider some of the basic and most useful add-ons I have come across.
Auctioneer/ Gatherer
Auctioneer is an add-on designed to help with pricing of items in the auction house. Auctioneer is by no means a tell all. You have to scan the auction house and gain a data base before it become useful at all. Read the web page and learn the ins and outs of it before you use it. A lot of people don't know how to use auctioneer and just have it because they have heard how good of an add -on it is. The main page for Auctioneer is
http://www.auctioneeraddon.com/?p=home
Gatherer is an add-on that is designed for Mining and herbalism. It keeps track of where nodes were found in the past, and what you got out of the node. This is useful for finding a node of a particular kind after you have already gone past it. You can also download data bases that have collected data from other people. The web page for gatherer is
http://gathereraddon.com/
WoW Ace
WoW Ace is a program that helps you maintain add-ons from their website. WoW Ace is an outlet for add-ons that are not always 100% finished or polished up. This means using WoW Ace add-ons will occasionally cause errors. The website is kind of bare bones, but it does give you a place to see a lot of intersting add-ons. The WoW Ace Updater allows you to maintain the newest version of the add-ons you are using. WoW Ace's web page is
http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Main_Page
Totem Timers
Totem Timers is a great add-on that gives you four buttons, one for each of the elemental totems. Under each button you can set an order for totems of the same elemental type. This also creates a quick key that you can push and cast your favorite totem of each element without any work at all. Totem timers also gives you three more keys on a separate movable spot that are set up to show you your weapon buff, elemental shield buff, and resurrection timer and ankh count. The web page to get information on it and download it is

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6521-TotemTimers.html .