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Google much more than a search engineThis page contains these sections: Table of contents
Summary of this pageI have been using and exploring a range of Google services over the past six months or so and have discovered that there are a host of functions that are very useful for both my personal and professional life. Google's range of services are particularly useful as a teaching resource providing a wide range of online tools at no charge. This paper provides me with opportunity to formalize my knowledge of Google's offerings and to share the material I gather with others. Contributing to and using this page e.g. Anyone can reorganise and contribute to this page. It is released under the default knowledgeGarden Copyright license which you can access by clicking COPYRIGHT on the left menu. There are so many Google products that it would be really helpful if you could investigate a few that haven't been dealt with and add your experiences and ideas. If you want you can add your name or avatar to the list of contributors:
Links to demonstration materialPoints for Discussion (YES, this is where you have your say!)
Your highlighting that Google retains web history was a surprise to myself. I had not even considered that they would do so. I guess it comes down to the the same old/same old - if you are legitimately using the software provided within the constraints of the law (international and national) then there is no need to be concerned about what history is saved or not. It is only if you step outside of what is accepted within society as embodied by law then you would have concern about what history had been retained. You highlighted a very postive benefit of retaining history and I would suspect that the majority of users, if the functionality is known to them, would appreciate the ability to retrieve information that otherwise was thought lost. Wendy, Egypt 6 August 2008 In the newspaper today (Sept 10) and posted on Reuters  is an article that Google is reducing its retention of private user data from 18 months to 9 months to appease European regulators. The same article quotes Google as saying, "We're significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users." Nice of them to add the privacy bit, but I think that without the "regulatory concerns" this period would not have been shortened. If you don't think privacy is a concern, recall that Google has been ordered by the Justice Department in the US and the courts in Brazil to hand over its user data. So far they've done a good challenging these orders and refusing, but other companies like MSN, AOL and Yahoo have complied all too easily.Steve Roberts
George Chinnery certainly thinks so! In his recent (2008) article on Google-Assisted Language Learning he explores a range of practical applications for language learners. Google, by default, checks for and corrects spelling errors; it also provides definitions, collocations and synonyms, as well as translations and speech synthesis functions. Chinnery considers a range of Google tools which may support productive, collaborative, communicative and aggregative study skills. Google Docs offers a platform for collaborative web-based word processing, for example, while Google Talk's instant messenger service allows users to save, print and e-mail text chats.To those who have concerns about its size and market dominance, the author is quick to point out opportunities for critical thinking and inquiry-based learning that teachers might plan for in class discussions. To this end, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2006) feature on Google Jockeying, although targeted at higher education, nonetheless makes a strong case for those interested in livening up classroom presentations and debates with student-directed, real-time searches. Ultimately, students may not "buy in" to each and every Google application, or indeed to any of them, and the practice of "jockeying" - via Google and via its competitors - may serve to underscore both the potential advantages of a virtual monopoly, as well as inherent disadvantages.Nick Saunders, August 6, 2008
Google are not accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because of a shift in focus to "developing Google Sites, which offers many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and Google docs" (Google FAQ 2008).Current users are able to continue using it and can manually move their pages to Google Sites or elsewhere, however, later this year Page Creator's pages will be automatically moved. Janice White, September 6, 2008 Google's products useful for the classroom
ToolbarThe toolbar can be tremendously useful. The feature I really find helpful and which I think is also useful for students is the bookmarks section. You can easily upload your bookmarks from say your home computer which means that your bookmarks are then online which means that you can get to your bookmarks from any where.The “Send To” icon on the toolbar is also helpful to students as it enables you to send text that is currently selected text and/or graphics, or the entire web page to your Google Mail (Gmail) or Blogger by simply logging in. This means that you can easily re-access useful websites or information when logged onto another computer with Internet access. Web HistoryIf you are logged in to your Google account and you have subscribed to this function, your web history is logged. I had the experience a few weeks ago of showing my young daughter a range of web pages dealing with instruments of the orchestra. A few days later, I felt quite frustrated as I wanted to return to one of the pages I'd found but thought I'd lost it. I happened to be searching through my online web history when I came across the session and was delighted to see that the orchestra research session was all recorded.I've also found that when students do online research they completely ignore my frequently made request to record the urls of the pages they've visited. Use the Web History function makes it possible for students to recover their web searches with ease making referencing a good deal easier. At the moment I can't find a specific link to the page for this function - perhaps its there when you click on the "my account" link? BloggerBlogging is hardly a ground breaking concept any more but what I really like about Google's offering is its ease of use. Also, you can upload video which has been useful for a course I've done for an informal class on 3D animation. Students have uploaded screenshots and short videos of their work to share with others in the class.In addition, it is very easy to customise you blog site so a rudimentary knowledge of image creation allows you to make your blog look like something that belongs to you rather than a site based on a well worn template. ! Calendar One of the most useful aspects of Google calendar is that you can create a calendar that is public, allowing others to gain access to it. There are differeing levels of access that you as creator can grant to the potential users of your calendar. They can be fully pulic requiring no login at all and just a link pointing to the correct location so that the user can see the calendar that you create. Sporting clubs, social clubs and especially schools could benefit from this application. In an education setting where calendars are really useful, using content programs like Moodle or Blackboard Vista usually suffice for this task. However when using templates in BBVista, if the template is changed throughout the semester, the content in the calendar is lost and has to be recreated, sometimes many times. Providing the students with a link to Google Calendar circumvents this issue and allows the lecturer to create the calendar only once - or edit as necessary, without template issues forcing them to recreate calendars over and over. Chris Fujairah 6th August 2008 SketchUpGoogle SketchUp is a free program that students can use to create, modify and share 3D models. Examples of applications of Google SketchUp include teaching space concepts (including plane and 3D shapes); and for creating buildings, homes and other structures. Once 3D objects have been created, students can view these objects from different perspectives including, top, front and side views. Once you have completed your drawing(s) in Google SketchUp, you can export them to another program, create a movie, or print them out.TranslateGoogle Translate is a text editing program that translates text, or webpages, in one language to text in another language. This can be particularly useful for English as Second Language (ESL) students, as well as exchange students who are living in a country that speaks a different language to their native language.TalkTalk is a communication tool provided by Google that enables users to send and receive instant messages, Gmail notifications, and enables you to have PC-PC voice calls. This can be particularly useful for students engaging in collaborative projects and assignments. This enables the students to continue to communicate at any time and place, so long as the students have access to the Internet.iGoogleiGoogle allows you to create your own personalised search portal homepage. It offers a small choice of basic themes (or more artist themes) and interests that can be checked (eg news, sport, technology, politics, film, books), as well as your location (country and town).The page that subsequently appears can be rearranged with drag and drop, much like Facebook. The checked interests appear as a tab alongside the 'home' page. Each 'box' (YouTube, wikipedia, date & time, weather etc) can be deleted or minimised, and has a menu with options to share/you might also like to/About this gadget. The Add Stuff options appear endless! Amazing! Dictionaries, links to applications such as Facebook, Gmail, MSN, delicious, a plethora of 'quotes of the day', photos of the day, translators, etc. You can drag a box from one tab to another, enabling customised pages. Saving the page requires a google account sign in or creation of an account. The 'stuff' includes options mentioned earlier on this page. Students might create their own research page incorporating dictionary, thesaurus, calendar, Scholar and other relevant applications. Google ScholarGoogle Scholar "provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research."Secondary and tertiary students, as well as professional educators and support staff, would find this useful. Janice White, September 6, 2008 Please feel free to remove or alter this contribution. Related knowledgeGarden pages
Related web sitesReferencese.g. Intext citations and reference list, (2006). In KnowledgeGarden: Our Learning Community. Retrieved April 20 2006, from http://knowledgeGarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page_id=323 Chinnery, G. (2008). You've got some GALL: Google-Assisted Language Learning. Language Learning & Technology, 12(1), 3-11. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol12num1/net/default.html. Google. (2008). Google SketchUp. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from http://sketchup.google.com/product/gsu.html Google. (2008). Google Translate. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from http://translate.google.com/translate_t Google. (2008). Google Talk. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from http://www.google.com/talk/intl/en-GB/#utm_source=en-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en-GB EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2006). 7 things you should know about Google Jockeying. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7014.pdf. Pearlstein, S. (2007, April 22). How much more should it be allowed to grab? The Washington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/. Spanbauer, S. (2007, June 19). Is Google too big? The Washington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2008, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/. Progress ReportThe Page I am Facilitating Links to to pages where I've made a contribution
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