The following is the script I use in Macbook (Mountain Lion). It should work on most *nix shell like bash, csh, ksh etc. However, I have tested it only in bash.
Script
#!/bin/bash
for f in *.$1; do
[[ -f "$f" ]] && mv -v "$f" "${f%$1}$2"
done
Save this file as "chext", make it executable chmod +x chext and add to your $PATH.
Now you can use it like this:
Usage
cd path-to-dir
chext oldextension newextension
chext oldextension newextension
Example
chext JPG jpg