Google Tools for Teachers

Scenario #1: It’s February & Black History month. A teacher wants to try something new this year and start each day with a short PowerPoint presentation about a famous African-American. Rather than reinvent the wheel the teacher wants to save time and find presentations that other teachers have already created and use them. Which Google tool would be most helpful?

Scenario#2: Lisa is a student with a good understanding of math concepts but often struggles with computation. She goes to the library to finish her math homework when she realizes her calculator battery has died. How can Google help?

Scenario#3: Samantha, Alex, William, & Wallace are working on a group project. It’s Friday night and the project is due on Monday. Unlike most students in the class, this group procrastinated and did not begin the project.

Samantha and Alex will be out of town for the weekend, William is grounded and cannot leave the house and Wallace has to stay home to care for his little sister. How can Google help them complete the project?

Scenario#4: Kathy teaches a High School class on current events. This week the class is discussing the World Wide energy crisis as well as the crisis in Darfur. Her evaluations have not been great. Her lessons have been described as “boring” and “unimaginative”. How can Google help solve her problem?

Scenario#5: Joe is constantly reading and researching on the Web. He’s constantly book marking his favorite sites to revisit when he needs the info. He also copy/pastes selected info that he would like to use and has files all over his computer. How can Google help him with his research?

Google Tools For Teachers Google is no longer simply a search engine.

This workshop will introduce many of Google’s free, web‐based tools that can be used in the classroom. In today’s class we explored a variety of tools for teachers such as Google Search, iGoogle, Google Reader, Blogger, Google Docs, Google Earth.

Everyone will leave with a whole new set of useful tools to enhance and supplement your lessons and curricula. Please check out my website and click Workshops>Google Tools… for additional handouts and resources if you would like to further your learning about these tools and begin integrating them into your curricula.

FRANK WESTCOTT Educational Technology Specialist frankwestcott@gmail.com frankwestcott.net

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Advanced Search Techniques

Google Earth

Google has incorporated a variety of useful tools into their search

Step One: Visit earth.google.com

engine to assist searchers by helping them focus and narrow their searches. For example, let’s say you were searching for PowerPoint presentations about Martin Luther King and only wanted search results

Download Google Earth and explore the various built in tools. Go back to the Google Earth website and download 3D models, and KML files to further enhance our Google Earth experience.

from educational institutions. You could type into the search box “Martin Luther King” filetype:ppt site: edu

Maps Most people’s experience with Google Maos is limited to getting driving

You search results should only show PowerPoint presentations, hosted

directions. Did you know you customize Google maps? You can create

on educational institutions related to the keywords Martin Luther King

your own customized maps, add locations, add pictures, videos, text,

There are many advanced search modifiers and trying to remember

etc. You can save these customized maps and share them with others.

them all could be difficult. When in doubt, click the Advanced Search link to the right of the Search button on Google to narrow your search.

iGoogle Once you’ve created a Google account you can create your own Google

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

start page. Add Gadgets, set it up the way that’s most useful to you and

Picture Word, PowerPoint, & Excel without the need for any software on

make that your homepage.

your computer. Google has made available, for free, a number of online tools that perform the same functions as commonly used word processors, presentation tools, and spreadsheets. Not only do you have the convenience of having your documents with you wherever you go you also have the ability to publish and share your documents. It’s great for collaborating with other people on a common project with everyone adding their input into a shared document as opposed to creating multiple documents with multiple versions, etc. You can also use the

Notebook Set up your Notebook and then surf the web as you normally would.

When you find items and information that interest you highlight them with your mouse and right-click (ctrl+Click on a Mac) and save the info automatically to your notebook. Visit your notebook, organize your clippings, add tags and comments. Notebooks could be shared with others, exported to a Google doc, or used in a number of different ways.

presentation tool to present information across the Internet to audiences

Reader

of people in various locations.

Google’s RSS feed aggregator. Once you set it up Google can manage all of the RSS feeds you’ve subscribed to and bring all the information to one central location.