Reflection on Sharon Betts' New Tools Presentation: Oodles of Googles

I have spent some time this year exploring the options that Google can provide an educator using Google Apps with a custom domain. I continually enjoy the resources that Google offers free to educators. I do an entire session on Google Tools for my course at Saint Joseph's College. The vast majority of my college students do not realize how much more can be done at Google beyond searches for information and images.

I have not used Web History in the past. Part of me thought is was just a bit odd to keep that information up on the Google servers. I see how it could be used to log your travels during a research project and as a way to keep track of sites, but find that Delicious works well for me in that arena (without the privacy issues).

I have used the Notebook feature in the past. I never realized how you can drag and drop images and text into your notebooks so easily. What a great way to organize your information! I have my students use Google Docs to collaborate on work for the course. They really like the change from sharing several copies of a document with each other to sharing one document with several people.

I definitely will need to spend some time exploring Google Groups. This looks like it could be a great resource for me and my students to use in the future. The ease of sharing information, files, and more appears as though it will be truly beneficial.

tag: k12online07nt03, k12online07


Image Citation:
http://theithacan.org/blogs/brink/files/2007/11/google.jpg