Googling
Since Googling has entered our vocabulary, the range of ways to Google has expanded. The most commonly known and frequently used Google’s search features are all linked from the Google search page:
Web Search
Everyone Googles, for better or worse results. Beyond a simple Web search, Google offers many more features. You can view them all here.
Image Search
Find images related to your search by a Google Image Search, or by adding words like 'pics' or 'pictures' to your search terms when you do a regular web search. Keep in mind that some inappropriate images may show up in the thumbnails, even if the actual sites are blocked.
Maps
View basic or custom maps, including business locations, contact information, and driving directions. Click and drag maps to view adjacent sections immediately. View satellite image with or without map data of your desired location that you can zoom and pan.
Video
Search for video clips on both YouTube and Google Video with one search. The Google Video Search page has a variety of categories including recommendations, popular, comedy, sports, education, and more. The day I looked at the search page, a St. Paul Winter Carnival video was “recommended.”
You can use the Search box to perform some very specific functions, too—a “quick reference” set of tools. Just enter the information in the search box.
- Calculator solves math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and conversions, and physical constants. Enter the calculation and hit enter.
- Currency Conversion will convert dollars to pounds, euros to pesos, and just about any country's currency to another's. Enter the conversion you want in the Google search box and hit Enter or click the Google Search button.
- Definitions Use the dictionary function to find the definition of a word or phrase. Put Define and the word phrase you seek in the search box and hit Enter. (eg, Define byte).
- PhoneBook Look up a US street address or phone number by entering various what you know in the search box and and hit Enter.
- Q&A Ask a fact-based question or query (like "temperature in Tokyo") by typing it into the Google search box and hit Enter. The answer displays at the top of the search results page. It includes the link to the source for this information.
- And a handy feature for typos in a search string or misspellings--Google Spell Checker automatically checks that you are using the most common version of a word's spelling. If not, it offers alternatives.
There are more, too, including stock quotes, street maps, travel info, package tracking, music info, movies, and on and on. Take a look and try them out.
Beyond Googling: Google Services & Tools
Google has an ever-expanding range of services & tools. There are search tools, tools for communication, application tools, photo service, mobile tools, email, productivity tools like calendars and document sharing, and more. You can view the entire list here.
We are all users of Blogger, the free blogging software we used to set up the MILI blogs. We talked about Google Reader, an aggregator similar to Bloglines that checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. There are many more.
So which ones might have classroom or library application? Take a look at these:
Advanced Search If you click Advanced Search on the Google home page, you get a page with many ways to expand or limit your search to find more precise results. By following the directions by each box, you can choose to include all search terms, exclude terms, search by language, file format, date or number range, and more. Another feature is “Find Similar Pages”: enter a URL of a page and Google retrieves pages with similar information.
Advanced Search uses special characters in searches. Use the + sign to include a term that would otherwise be excluded from a search or the ~ to search synonyms. You might want to print Google’s Cheat Sheet of Advanced Operators to help you and the students use Advanced Search.
Special Searches
Customized Search Engine This feature has great classroom/library application. You can create a set of sites and limit your Google search to just those sites. You can save this set and host it on your Web site so users will be able to search the set
Google has created several customized search engines for everyone to use. Search government sites. Search to a specific University website. Others include Microsoft, Linux, and Apple Macintosh.
Alerts
Set up a Google Alert to receive email updates about your topics—people, sports, news, whatever. Some people set up a Google Alert on their name or institution. Teachers and librarians can set up alerts on current events or people or another topic useful to class activity.
Book Search Full text of books from cooperating partners allows users to search book content. Includes links to Buy this Book or Borrow This Book to show availability. Learn more.
Scholar Scholar provides a broad search for scholarly literature. “Search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, ... universities and other scholarly organizations.” Google provides links to libraries or Web resources when available. Learn more. Do a deeper search using Ebsco Academic Premier or another ELM database.
Google Docs Google Docs is free, but you do need a Google account (register with any email address). Once registered you can create, edit and upload documents, spreadsheets and presentations, or create new ones from scratch. Once there you can access and edit from anywhere with a Web browser. Invite people to your documents and make changes together, at the same time. Handy for teacher collaboration, students working together, or your own work—docs are stored online, so no flash drive or other storage device needed. Learn more.
iGoogle Homepage A quick way to have a customized homepage. You can drag and drop elements on the page to suit your needs. Google Account required.
News Archive Searches historical archives. In A nice feature is that the News archive search can automatically create timelines which show selected results from relevant time periods. Not a substitute for subscription databases like Ethnic NewsWatch or ProQuest or other subscription database, but you will get a quick news review.
Earth This interactive mapping application allows users to navigate the entire globe. It uses satellite imagery with overlays of roads, buildings, geographic features, and the like. This requires a download to use.
Even More Tools
- Gmail Web-based email application with a lot of free storage (“never delete” is a Gmail tag line). Free.
- Notebook You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window. You can have multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, drag and drop to organize. You can make your notebooks public to share them with the world. Handy for note taking when using different sites. Need Google Account.
- Page Creator A free online tool that makes it easy to create and publish useful web pages in a few minutes.
- Google Suggest A beta search that offers suggestions of other search terms based on what you entered. Google encourages users to play around with its ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time. These “beta” products (in test or tryout phase) show what Google developers have in mind for new products. Take a look--Google Mars and Google Trends are fun.
Want to help Google improve its searching capabilities? Join an experimental group and give feedback on the products.
Core
- Create a customized search engine to use with your class(es). Add it to your Teacher Home page.
- Explore Google Earth. How could this be used in history, language arts, world languages...?
- Do a News Archive search and click Show Timeline. Useful in classroom?
- Look at Google Librarian Central and Google for Educators. Consider subscribing to the newsletters, printing the posters or bookmarks (!), or joining the forums.
- Choose one other feature to explore. Blog about your choice and share whether it is useful, fun, a waste of time, or ….
Blog Prompts
- Is Google your first stop on a Web search? Why or why not?
- How many of Google’s features do you use regularly?
- How do you use Google with students?
- Why do we love Google? Or do you?
Resources
Improve your own Google searching, learn how to use Google in a classroom, and keep up with changes with these resources.
- Google for Educators Google has a site for teachers to help you understand Google’s features and how to integrate them into the classroom. Includes activities and printable stuff like bookmarks and posters.
- Google Librarian Central Aimed at helping librarians understand and use Google. Also has printable stuff, hints on teaching Google, and more.
- Google Friends Newsletter includes messages about new features and other information.
- What’s Google up to now? Online resources for keeping up with Google and search engines. C&RL News (College and Research Libraries), September 2006, Vol. 67, No.8. This artcle offers some sources to help track what's new.
About.com offers reviews of Google products and services.
Books
Really want to learn more? Check out these books and others on using Google. Use Thing 16. MnLINK to find which Minnesota libraries own them.
- Google Earth For Dummies by David A. Crowder. For Dummies; 1 edition (February 27, 2007).
- Google: The Missing Manual by Rael Dornfest, et. al. O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2 edition (March 10, 2006).
- Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource, (2nd Edition) by Michael Miller. O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2 edition (March 10, 2006).
Make the Information Literacy Connection
Google is often the focus of discussions about information literacy as teachers and librarians often despair that it is the first and maybe the only source of research for students. Instead of banning Google, teach students its useful features and how to evaluate the information they find on Google. They will Gather at least some of their information via Google; we need to be sure they understand they must evaluate and analyze it, too.
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