I can't believe it! My last blog post for grad school. I never thought I would be a blogger. Well that changed and I have actually enjoyed blogging. It is so reflective. I enjoy reviewing what I have learned each week and sharing tips that may help other educators. That's another thing. I never thought that anyone would want to read my blog aside from my instructor (because she assigned it) and my mom (because she's my mom). Well, with a little motivation I put myself out there and shared my blog on social media. It is exciting to see more people read my blog. I hope that others have learned some helpful tips to try in their classrooms. Who knows, maybe I'll keep blogging because I'll have all the time in the world next year since I won't be in grad school! (I am jumping up and down right now, fist bumping the air in excitement.)
This week I focused on quite a few tricks to search the internet. Google has so many special search tips. Here are a few:
Probably my favorite search tip is that you can search by filetype. This has saved me so much time. When I need a worksheet or some extra practice problems, I search the topic I am teaching and then filetype: pdf.
If you want to learn more, read my "Google Search Tips" post from January.
This week I explored searching Google as a news source. Google has its own news app. You can personalize your news feed to be about what you want to read. You can select which edition of news you want to read. This could be helpful if you are studying about another country. Searches can be customized by top stories or you can choose to let Google recommend news for you based on your location and interest. Learn more about Google News here.
Another cool search tip I learned this week was how too find images that are not tied to copyright licences.
After doing a Google image search, select Search tools, and then Usage rights. You can narrow your search to images for your classroom that do not break copyright rules. If you are in a Google Doc, you can do a Google image search within your document. All images that are brought up are labeled for commercial reuse with modification. You can set specifications if you want to search Google images, Life images, or Stock images. Images can be sorted by type and color.
(The more I learn about Google and its features, the more I love it! I mean these these are pretty nifty tips for every day use, but they open up so many options for education.)
Learning internet search tips is very useful. When I have a question that I don't know the answer to, I usually Google it. Well this week I was introduced to Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha does more than just find websites that pertain to your topic or question. Wolfram Alpha compiles a vast quantity of data that may be helpful in answering a question. Let's consider a math question for example. I asked my Honor's Algebra 2 students the following question:
Once they had an answer, I wanted to be able to show my students a correct version of this graph. The only problem was that the window on their graphing calculators were too small. Wolfram Alpha provided me with the following graph:
Aside from the graph, Wolfram Alpha also gave the roots of the equation, the domain and range, and other possible forms of the equation. Check it out here. Well math may not be your thing. Watch this short YouTube and consider what Wolfram Alpha has to offer you and your classroom.
Hopefully you have learned some great internet searching tips. Sometimes things are just lost because we don't know how to search for them. Well feel empowered. Use some of my Google search tips and give Wolfram Alpha a try. I hope that your internet searching will lead you to find some great things for your classroom.
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