This week Paul Murray (@Paul_Murray6) and I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 miGoogle Summit in Brighton, MI. This was a great opportunity for us to learn some new tips and tricks from our fellow educators, as well as share some of our own as speakers at the conference. There's nothing quite like a good learning opportunity to renew your enthusiasm for education and the great tools out there to enhance teaching and learning.
Over the next month, my goal is to share some of the tips, tricks, and tools from miGoogle and open the door for discussion on the ways you all are using these tools in your classrooms.
This first tip comes from my presentation on Doing More with Google Docs. One of my favorite features natively found in Google Docs in the Research Tool. This great tool allows you to do a general Google search, or search specifically for images, videos, scholarly articles, quotes or tables, then insert that information right in to your document or presentation. With images, you can even select to only allow images that are "Free to use, share or modify...." It also sites (MLA, APA, or Chicago Style) your source for you when you are in documents!
To get there, open up a Google document or presentation. Click on Tools. Select Research. The search box will appear on the right side of your screen.
Classroom Uses:
Now students can drag and drop images, cite sources, and search for quotes that bring presentations and documents to life. Before the research tool was available, it was very time consuming and challenging to teach my elementary students how to go out to the Internet, find images (free use, of course), copy the images, return to the document, paste the images, then cite where they found the images (and no, Google is not an acceptable answer for the source). Now I have first graders adding pictures to research projects with only a couple clicks of a button. Amazing!
To see this tool in action, check out this video:
Over the next month, my goal is to share some of the tips, tricks, and tools from miGoogle and open the door for discussion on the ways you all are using these tools in your classrooms.
Let's get started: Going Google #1: Search Directly in your Google Docs
This first tip comes from my presentation on Doing More with Google Docs. One of my favorite features natively found in Google Docs in the Research Tool. This great tool allows you to do a general Google search, or search specifically for images, videos, scholarly articles, quotes or tables, then insert that information right in to your document or presentation. With images, you can even select to only allow images that are "Free to use, share or modify...." It also sites (MLA, APA, or Chicago Style) your source for you when you are in documents!To get there, open up a Google document or presentation. Click on Tools. Select Research. The search box will appear on the right side of your screen.
Classroom Uses:
Now students can drag and drop images, cite sources, and search for quotes that bring presentations and documents to life. Before the research tool was available, it was very time consuming and challenging to teach my elementary students how to go out to the Internet, find images (free use, of course), copy the images, return to the document, paste the images, then cite where they found the images (and no, Google is not an acceptable answer for the source). Now I have first graders adding pictures to research projects with only a couple clicks of a button. Amazing!
To see this tool in action, check out this video:
Join the Conversation:
Have you used the research tool? Share how you are using it in your classroom in the comments section!
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