Monday, June 12, 2006

Google Tools and Services

At our Lead Teachers meeting on Friday, we spent some time looking at a few of the multitude of Tools and Services available from Google.

Please take some time to have a look at the Google Tools and Services that are available, as I'm sure you will find it's a great time saver in the long run! In particular we looked at:

Google Images: remember that not only can you search for images only, but you can also choose the size of images displayed. This is particularly useful if you want a larger image, as this will help prevent the distortion you get when enlarging small images.

Google News: Google News gathers stories from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide, and automatically arranges them to present the most relevant news first. Topics are updated every 15 minutes, so you are likely to see new stories each time you check the page. Pick the item that interests you and you'll go directly to the site which published that story. You can choose to display the Top Stories from New Zealand, or quickly and easily set up a News Alert. A ‘News alert’ is an email that lets you know if new articles make it into the top ten results of your Google News search. This is a very efficient way of tracking current events, or special events that your class are following.

Google Services: Click on ‘more’ to go to Google Services. A Directory Search can be useful if you’re just looking for ideas for your classes, with no specific topic in mind. Try Special Searches to find things specifically for Apple Macintosh.

Search Tips: Click on About Google on Google homepage to find links to Help and How to Search and some interesting search tips in Google Web Search Features.

Did you know: Type a word in the Google search box. If it has a dictionary definition, the word will appear in the right-hand side of the blue bar that stretches across the top of your search results.

For one-word terms, "[definition]" appears next to the word. Clicking on that link will display the word's dictionary definition.

If a query contains more than one word, each word will appear underlined. Simply click on a word to view its dictionary definition.

www.googleguide.com - Interactive online tutorial on using the search engine.

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