Blog #9 Google Tools

This week, in addition to the readings, I also read an online article, which highlighted many educational uses of google. I decided to write my blog on this article instead of the reading this week because I found it particularly beneficial for me. One thing that was mentioned was the fact that google will allow you to do a custom search. I was unaware of this before, but it definitely could have helped me in the past. I used to let my kids look up our vocabulary words for the week online. I would look up the words myself before hand and try to make sure there wasn't any sexual innuendo that could possible be associated with the words before I would give them to them. Still, every once in awhile, one of them would show me a risque picture they found. It would have been really nice to customize their searches and not have to worry about that anymore.

Another tool mentioned was Google Groups. This was explained like an online chat room for a class. This is just another way they could collaborate and share their thoughts. It's also a place where they could post questions for the rest of their classmates and get help if needed. Google Buzz was also mentioned. This is similar to Google Groups except students can also post and share photos and videos. The students can comment on each other's posts. So, one student could post a picture and another student could comment and hopefully the students would get involved in a running dialogue online. The fact that it's online will give them a chance to plan out their responses, which would hopefully lead to more accuracy and fluency.