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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Oodles of Googles

This presentation gave teachers ideas for using free applications from google to let students use the web to create writing projects. It started out very basically, explaining to teacher how to use the internet and special features of their browser (i.e. bookmarks and web history). She had four categories: Investigation - research; Preparation - organization;Presentation - the product; and Summation - reflection / feedback / archiving.

We created google accounts and used the google notebook to save all of our research through basic google searches. Something new I learned was the google alerts. This alerts you when new information is added about your topic. All of this information could be shared too! Which is great for a group project.

Preparation used mainly notebook and docs/spreadsheets. You can send your notes directly into your notebook without re-typing!! Google docs is practically the same as a word processor, except that you can access it anywhere and it can be shared with anyone over the web.

Presentation lets you share your project in a totally new way. You have to subscribe to presentation app and page creator app to post your research. These applications also lets you share the construction of your project and at the end produces a URL to give to anyone who needs/wants to see the finished product. People can also comment or ask questions if you are giving a live presentation!! Page creator is extremely simple and each project can have it's own webpage! Once these are finished they are available immediately for viewing!

The final step is Summation. This is the reflection stage. Google groups is what the instructor suggests is the best. This is interesting because you can make the sessions public or private to just your students working on the project. In this app you can upload files, add links, see the members of the group, visit their profiles, send the members private messages, and discuss what ever you want.

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