Google Sites

     The final tool we worked with was Google Sites.  According to Google “Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer”.  Basically, it supposed to be an easy way for people to create their own website.    

     All in all, I really did not like Google Sites.  This was not the first website that I have created.  Granted it has been several years since I created my last website, I used Netscape Navigator to create it.  I am the type of person that likes to jump into things and figure it out as I go, but this was extremely frustrating for me.  I found it to be very user unfriendly, it was just too complex to use.  To give an example, I wanted to embed a Custom Google Search Engine that I had created.  You would think that it would be extremely simple, just insert it, right?  No, I had to create my own Google Gadget and insert my search engine’s html code.  Well, it wasn’t even that simple.  Apparently Google used to have the GGE, Google Gadget Editor, but they stopped supporting it.  So, I had to generate my own gadget html code and then insert my search engine’s html code.  This probably took me at least an hour to figure out.  I was finally able to get help from this website.  I guess I just expected greater integration between Google pieces. 

     I also wanted to embed my TubeSnack playlist, but I had to seek help here to figure that out also.  However, I believe this difficulty was partly my own doing.  I could not have more than 5 videos in my playlist, and none of them could be longer than 5 minutes.  If I had decided to pay for the premium options I would not have had these limitations.  After much difficulty, I discovered that one of my videos was over 5 minutes.  So, I only accept partial responsibility for this difficulty since the limitations were not clearly defined.

     I did find that creating new pages in Google Sites was pretty easy.  All you had to do was click:

You can even name your page and decide where it attaches to the website:

     Once I got the hang of Google Sites I was finally able to put in the information that I wanted to put in.  I wanted to make a site that was useful for parents, students, and fellow educators.  Here is the link to my site.

Picasa and YouTube

This week we explored YouTube and Picasa.  As are most people I am fairly familiar with using YouTube in the classroom, but I was not aware of all the hidden features that YouTube has.  Here is a link to the hidden YouTube.  YouTube itself is not really all that complicated, but some of its hidden features can be.  The above site does a pretty good job of explaining how to use many of these features.  We also used a website called Tube Snack.  This site allows you to create a playlist using YouTube videos.  Here is a link to a playlist that I made for Alternative Energy Sources.

Picasa is another piece of software from Google that is an image organizer and image viewer.  I had never heard of this software before, but I found it to be very easy to use.  You can download Picasa here.  With Picasa you are able to edit and retouch your photos.  You can also use it to create a photo collage, like the one that I made for my Alternative Energy Sources Unit.

Here is a link to Google’s Picasa Help page and a YouTube video:

Picasa also allows you to create albums and share them through Picasa Web Albums.  One thing that I did not really like was that Picasa doesn’t show how to create a web album directly.  In the program you start a Web Album by clicking on “share”.  Here is a video that helps you create a Picasa Web Album:

Here is a link to a web album that I created using Picasa Web Albums.  For those of you that want to know more about Picasa here is a site that shows some of its hidden features.

All in all these are both tremendous resources for a teacher in the classroom.  I highly recommend looking into using them for your classroom.

Google Earth and Tour Builder

     This week we spent time with 2 different apps.  One that I have limited experience with, and one that I have no experience with.  Those 2 apps are Google Earth and Tour Builder respectively.  There is also a Google Earth plugin for your browser.

     According to Google^© “Google Earth allows you to travel the world through a virtual globe and view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, and much more. With Google Earth's rich, geographical content, you are able to experience a more realistic view of the world. You can fly to your favorite place, search for businesses and even navigate through directions.”  Personally, one of the coolest things I found out about was that you don’t even have to stay on Earth.  You can “walk” on the moon where NASA astronauts walked all those years ago.  You can even go where no man has ever gone before, Mars.  You can even enable the Flight Simulator and fly several different types of aircraft.  You are also able to dive down deep into the ocean.  You can turn back the clock and view historical areas using thebutton.  The possibilities are positively endless.  While working on some assignments I found 2 really good resources on using Google Earth in the classroom.  They are Bring Google Earth Into Your Science Class & How Teachers are using Google Earth in the classroom.  If you would like to learn more about using Google Earth please check the following Google Earth Tutorial:

     Tour Builder, to me, was more of an addon to Google Earth.  It is not a standalone program, it uses Google Earth to take you on a tour of your choosing.  According to Google^{© “}Google Tour Builder is a web-based storytelling tool which lets you easily create and explore stories and places around the world. Based on the Google Earth plugin, you can create a tour of any subject of your choosing, zooming in to show the places where events took place, and easily integrating the story’s text, photos and videos. Your tour will fly users from one place to the next along the storyline of your tour, immersing them in the relevant places through Google Earth’s imagery and the custom content you provide.”  I did really like the freedom of Tour Builder.  In my opinion it was very easy to use.  I really liked the ability to embed photos and videos directly from Google.  If you want, you can also upload photos or videos from your computer into your tour. I did find a few websites about using Tour Builder in the classroom: Tour Builder in Google Earth & Take a Trip with Google Tour Builder.  If you would like to know more about using check out this Tour Builder Tutorial: 

Here is a tour I created on Albert Einstein using Tour Builder.  What suggestions do you have for using Google Earth and Tour Builder in the classroom?

Handy Google

This week our focus has been on Google Calendar and other miscellaneous Google tools.  I knew that Google had many other tools, but I had no idea that there were that many out there.

I have always used iCal, but the major downfall I found with it was that it could only be used on Apple products.  I think I will begin using Google Calendar from here on out for the simple fact that it can be used across multiple platforms: Apple, Windows, and mobile devices.  It could be rather tedious to get to your calendar on a mobile device since there is no Google Calendar app.  There are many 3^rd party apps out there that you can download to your mobile device that allow you to sync your Google calendar across your mobile device.  The one that I am going to try is called CalenMob.  Here is a link to the developer Appxy.  Does anyone else use a different app?

The Internet has made it so much easier for people to get information, but there is also a downfall to this.  It has also made it easier for not completely reliable information to be found.  Google Scholar allows the user to find peer reviewed information, as a science teacher this is a big help.  I really liked that you are able to sort your results by relevancy or by date.  One of the things I did not like was that many of the article titles contained many Tier 3 level vocabulary, Science type jargon.  All in all I found this to be a very useful search tool.  This would be a tremendously useful tool for students to determine the timeliness and credibility of a source.  So many of my students want to go to Wikipedia and call it good, but this would allow them to find credible resources.  Here is a video tutorial on how to use Google Scholar:

 

I think I'm really going to start to re-evaluate my tech program choices.  As I said earlier I had no idea that Google had quite so many things to offer, and how seamlessly they work together.  Which of Google's tools are your favorite?

Google Drive

This has kind of been a rough week for me after having my wisdom teeth extracted.  Luckily, I have not been in nearly as much pain as I had feared.  I had heard so many horror stories from friends and family that I think I overestimated the amount of pain I might have.

Well, on to the task at hand.  This week in my grad class we have been working with Google Drive.  It is a tremendous resource for collaboration.  You can share a file with anyone, give them editing rights, and you can work on it together.  This is especially advantageous when you can’t all be in the same place at the same time.  Another advantage of Google Drive is if you are working on a collaborative project, say as a classroom, all people can have their input at the same time.  This presents an amazing opportunity for middle and high schoolers.  They all seem to have an opinion and don’t have the patience to wait to present that opinion.  If you would like information on how to share a document with someone have a peek at this video:

If you are the type of person that likes to see and talk to people while you collaborate then maybe you would be interested in Skype.  Skype is a program that allows you to video conference with other people that have the program.  To be able to use Skype you must have a computer or mobile device with a camera on it.  Here is a video tutorial on how to set up and use Skype:

Research Difficulties

Every year I have my 8^th graders and my Principles of Chemistry and Physics students research an element off of the Periodic Table.  Most of my students have no idea what to type into a search engine to even begin looking things up.  I have found that my student’s idea of research is to go to Wikipedia and call it good.  Another problem that I run into is after they have exhausted Wikipedia is for them to find credible sources. I am hoping I can eliminate 2 of those problems by having my students use the custom Google search engine that I prepared.  The search engine will give me a bit of control over what sites my students can find information.  The only sites that they can get information from are the sites that I pre-loaded into the search engine.  Here is the search engine that I created.

If you would like to know how to create your own custom search engine here is a good link from Google Developers.

The All Mighty Google

Here I go again (Whitesnake playing in my head) with another blog post.  This week we have focused on the all mighty Google search engine and its associate, Gmail.  I have had a Gmail account for quite some time, but really only used it when I had to.  I really like the fact that I can consolidate all of my other accounts into this one area.  I have had this feature set up on my Mac for a long time, and have found it to be very, very useful.  If you would like more information on how to do this take a look here.  Another thing that I found useful was Boomerang.  It’s a sort of addon for Chrome that will allow you to compose an email, but schedule it to be sent a later time/date.  This will be very useful for sending out reminders to parents, or meeting reminders.  I might even start using it to send myself reminders, this hadn’t really occurred to me until just now.  If you would like to know how to set up Boomerang have a peek here.  Finally, I really liked the ability to be able to “unsend” an email.  I know we have all had that moment of “oh crap, I sent that without the attachment”, or some other reason why we would like to have a redo.  This seems like it should be a must for most people.  More information on how to set this up can be found here.  What tools have you find for Chrome and/or Gmail? 

Here we go again...

Well, I have officially begun my second blog post.  I have started several blogs over my career, but I don’t seem to be able to stick with them for very long.  I have never really been much of a blogger, not really sure why.  Maybe it’s part of my ADD.

My wife disagrees with me that I have ADD, she thinks it’s just a lack of focus.  Here’s an example:

I will begin to clean our living room, I will pick something up to put it away in one of my daughter’s rooms.  Once I’m in their room I will pick something up for my other daughter’s room.  While I am in her room I might pick up a cup and take it to the kitchen.  I will decide to wash that cup and then several more after it.  Then I realize that I need a dish towel to dry those cups, so I head down to the laundry room.  Down there I see that I need to wash some towels.  After all of this I may finally get back to the living room.

There may also be a little bit of OCD thrown into the mix as well.

Now, back to my original point of why I don’t blog.  Who knows?  My wife may be right, but don’t tell her I said that, it may just be a lack of focus.  I also think part of the problem is that I have never been much of a creative writer.  I always dreaded being given a creative writing assignment.  Now, if you gave me a research topic, I could whip that paper out in nothing flat.

 So, I ask that all of you please bear with me.  That is, if there is anyone out there even reading this. 

To Chrome or not to Chrome?

Changing is a very difficult thing for me to do.  I have been using Firefox since its release back in late 2004.  I can see many similarities between Firefox and Chrome.  I can not say the same for the other 2 main competitors out there, Safari and Internet Explorer.  One of the main things that I like about these 2 browsers is that they are both very stable.  I have far fewer issues with either of them failing to load a webpage.  One of the biggest advantages I can see is if a site crashes on one of your tabs, other open tabs will not be affected.  Another major advantage is that Chrome is more easily usable on mobile devices as shown in the video at the bottom.  However, to be honest, I don't really see that many differences between the 2 browsers.  If there are any that I am missing please let me know.  For those of you that would like to try Google Chrome for yourself just click here: Chrome Download.