A Google a Day

Google is now offering a great resource for educators and students.  It is called A Google a Day and it is a very simple idea but can be great for students and teachers.  Google a Day offers one question per day and students use their search skills to help them answer the question.  The students search using Google and the question stays with them at the bottom of the page as they search.  Once the students find the answer they can have Google show them what the correct answer is including directions on how the question should be answered and the proper way to search for it.  This is a great tool for students, not only will they learn something from the questions that are asked but they will also learn how to use Google to find the answers that they need more efficiently.

Let Google Docs and Flubaroo do the Grading!

Why do all of the grading when Google Docs and Flubaroo can do it for you. If you use Google Docs there is a great new tool that can be added to your Google Docs account, the name may sound funny but what it can do will amaze you.  Flubaroo.com provides a very nice set of instructions on how to use their tool located here.  Once you have the script installed and you have created your form you will just click on the grade assignment and then tell flubaroo what answers you are looking for and it does the rest for you.  Imagine grading 160 assignments in less then two minutes.  Sounds good to me!

Check out the video!

Discussions in Google Docs

Thinking about using Google Docs!  Here is another great reason to start using it.  As you may know Google has a feature within Google Docs that allows a collaborator to comment on the document itself.  The comments are placed in the margins of the document.  Well now Google has set up discussions that can take place within the margins of the document.  For example I can comment on a student's work and then they can reply to my comment as to what they were thinking when they were writing the paper.  This is a great way to help your students fine tune their writing skills and also a way that students can help each other with writing projects.  Check out this video if you would like to see more.

View Google Search Results Based Upon Reading Level

I recently just learned about a new tool that Google offers that will help you sort your search results based on Reading Level.  Although the new tool is fairly new and needs a little bit of work it is a great start to something that can make things a lot easier for teachers.  Google uses a very simplified leveling system which includes basic, intermediate and advanced reading levels that you can sort your results by.

How do I use this new feature?

• Go to www.google.com
• Type in your search term and then click on the "Advanced Search"
• On the next screen you can choose the Reading Level you want to work with or select "Annotate results with reading levels".

• Click on Advanced Search
• You can now choose which reading level you would like to sort by and the percentage of results within that reading level.

• You and your students can now use this feature to help narrow down the results and hopefully make things a little easier on everyone.

Classroom Use:
This is a great tool to use with students who may be researching information on a specific subject.  Elementary students can view the basic results where as High School Students might find that the intermediate or advanced results will better suit them.