Thing # 7-- A gaggle of google

Growing up in the generation where "google" became an addition to the dictionary, I feel pretty confident in my google tool use. My personal e-mail account is through google or g-mail and since opening it I have utilized a variety of these tools including the iGoogle homepage, calendar, and (most notably) google documents.

The first tool I decided to play with was the Alert mechanism. I decided to use the terms "science" and "education" to be searched once a day with a maximum of 20 results. Here are the first five that were sent to me immediately in an e-mail:

Google News Alert for: science education

Evolution, Life Sciences, Science Education, Human Evolution, and Stuff ScienceBlogs (blog) Such as: The following Wikio Widget gives a 'toplist' of science blog sites. If you feel that any one of these sites is not really a science blog site (a ... See all stories on this topic

CONNECT partners strengthen focus on science New England Business Bulletin The collaborative program was developed to highlight the need for science education throughout the K-12 curriculum and to promote the many camps and ... See all stories on this topic

Pinhead Punk Science: Silly Science Fun for Kids The Daily Planet Pinhead is committed to providing the highest quality of science education available to local youth of all ages. “The Pinhead Institute believes strongly in ... See all stories on this topic

Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion, Law and Culture ScienceBlogs (blog) He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations ... See all stories on this topic

Forced to Hire From Within, Principals Balk Wall Street Journal The department estimates it needs 1000 new special-education teachers this year, and 200 science teachers. Last year, it hired 1200 special-education ... See all stories on this topic

This tool has the potential to be very useful to science teachers as our subject is quite dynamic and although are trusty textbooks are excellent in many ways... they are unable to keep up with the constant ebb and flow of findings in the topics that we cover. An example is Pluto's demotion from planet to dwarf planet... no more "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Tragic.

Next, since I had already created a new google account for work, I decided to use Google Documents. I uploaded a previously created rubric for one of my projects this past year. The google version can be accessed here:

Overall, the transition between Microsoft Excel to Google Excel was pretty smooth, though I have had other experiences with Word that did not reflect exactly what I wanted. As an educator, I think the greatest advantages of this tool are A) the ability to be shared and B) an alternative to downloading every document received in e-mail to your hard-drive.

Ok.. I'm all googled out.