Thing # 21

I had no idea Google offered so many great tools!! As I scanned the list I recognized several of them from this class or previous knowledge; however, there were many that were new to me. I explored a few more thoroughly and I already have a short list of tools that I will be going back to in my "spare" time! ha!

I worked with Google Calendar some because I immediately thought of several uses for this tool. Personally, it would be an effective way to keep up with our family's schedule and would also aid in planning family events because everyone could see each other's calendars. Professionally, this would be great just to keep up with meetings and classes for myself. Also, I instantly thought that Google Calendar would be absolutely excellent when we are scheduling grade level parent/teacher conferences. Since we departmentalize we each schedule conferences for our home room students but we all participate in each conference. It can become such a headache to call and schedule times only to realize that you have inadvertantly double-booked. This will be a tool that will make scheduling across our grade level so much more efficient.

I also explored Book Search. As a reading teacher, this tool thoroughly excites me! I am wishing I had known about it sooner. I love that you can preview the text before you purchase a book. This will definitely be useful to me when I am looking for texts to use in the classroom. I did find, however, that several books I searched did not allow you to look at the text. Yet, it could still be useful in seeing a summary of the book and reading reviews about it. Sometimes, though, the reviews aren't always of good quality. Nonetheless, I am still sure I will be able to utilize this tool.

Some of the tools that are still on my short list for exploring are Picasa and Sites. Sites looked like an easy, great way to create a classroom website, but I am not quite ready to take the plunge. I am still trying to decide if I want to implement a class blog or website. Decisions, decisions.... :)