Google Tools


 

Google Tools

 

This page will provide a sampling of tools provided by Google that are useful to students, teachers, and SLMS.

 

The first step is signing up for a Google account. The easiest way to do that is to sign up for Gmail. Even if you never use this free email account it is the quickest way to get the account you will need to use numerous tools offered by Google.

 

Custom Search

The SLMS often goes to the trouble of collecting twenty web resources on an individual topic, only to have students give up on, or bypass altogether, those same resources for a generic web search. By creating a custom search the SLMS and teacher can provide those superior links, and students can retain the feel of the traditional Google search.

 

Basically, the SLMS uses the custom search feature to create a personalized search experience. The twenty web resources mentioned above are entered into a list of sites the custom search will use. Once completed the student searching from the customized search page will only access information from those web resources dictated by the SLMS.

 

For details go to http://www.google.com/coop/cse/

 

Google Docs

Students come into the LMC to work on a research project. They work for 45 minutes gathering information and putting it into a Microsoft Word document. At the end of the period they ask how they can access their research from home. They don’t have a disk or a flash drive. Or, maybe they worked on a project the previous day and saved to the desktop of a computer that is now being used by another student.

 

A Google document would allow students to create and save work at school, while still being able to access it from any other computer. Google documents are web based so any computer that has web access can be used to work on a specific document. Students research at school, write a paper at home, and then proofread it the next day at school. For a final, formatted copy the student may export the paper to a Word document and make sure everything is in proper MLA format.

 

Perhaps the assignment involves collaboration between two or more people. The same Google document created above may be shared with multiple people. What that means is one person may be working on body paragraph one, while another is working on body paragraph two. This work is done simultaneously within the same document. Once completed, that document may also be posted to the web for classmates and teachers to view.

 

Google Docs also offers spreadsheet and presentation features that offer many of the same capabilities as discussed above.

 

For details go to  https://docs.google.com

 

Google offers many other online tools that are worth checking out.