Thing #7

Thing #7: Cool Google Tools

Google Maps is the best. True dat! Double true!

I already have an iGoogle page set up. I get the weather and news feeds on it, as well as word of the day and random quote of the day.

I looked through Picasa, but didn't see that it has any obvious advantage over Flickr.

I set up a Google Calendar. Right now I have mundane quotidian tasks on it, but I may use it during the upcoming school year. After creating it, I embedded it in my iGoogle page.

The find I'm intrigued by most is Google Docs. Having a text, drawing, or presentation (the program seems to be a kind of low-battery PowerPoint) independent of any one PC, and available wherever there's an Internet connection available, can be invaluable! It is true that at our school we have an intranet of teacher files, so (for example) a substitute can access an absent teacher's saved document, but this goes beyond the school building itself.

Here is a worthless web document I made to start. (The option to let others edit the document implies a host of learning and creative opportunities. It appears to me to be the perfect medium, for example, for older kids to create an ongoing and collaborative text.)