Google Notes from CUE

I am attending the Advanced Google Workshop for Educators at CUE 2010. Here are the tools, techniques and general knowledge that I'm taking away from the workshop and from other sessions and discussions at CUE.

Google Forms / Spreadsheets

• Has a word cloud gadget. (Didn't even know about spreadsheet gadgets). This gives you an instant word cloud from a selection.
• Rushton Hurley also showed us the googlelookup formula "=googlelookup(entity; attribute)" that will return the highest hit search result for the terms that are in the formula (results come from wikipedia or other sources).

Google Search

• goodies: "define", formulas, currency, time, general conversions
• Check out the "15 second search tip" YouTube videos. Look for one about configuring your browser for SafeSearch.
• Search options > Timeline graph as a current events tool
• Search options > Wonder wheel shows related searches in hub-and-spoke system
• Google image swirl (labs): Hub-and-spoke image results
• Google squared (labs): Spreadsheet view of results, with suggested additions (or add from table). Best part is that results can be saved to spreadsheet or shared as a link
• Advanced search filter terms: "-", link:, site:, filetype: No shortcut for usage rights (need to use the Advanced search screen).
• Google books: Can create personal or school library bookshelf, by importing ISBN lists.
• Google scholar: Results include cites.
• Translate

Custom Search Engine

• Can limit search range to specific domains or even a collection of specific pages.
• As an example, Ken built snipr.com/customimagesearch as an example of a copyright-free photos that are appropriate for K12.
• You can make "cse"s ad-free. Re-open the search settings after creating a custom search engine and look at the bottom of the settings for the option to not display ads.
• A custom search engine also has a blog embed tag and an "add to your Google homepage" button on the front page.
• To learn more about using this in education watch digitalroberto's screencast

Google Search in an Information Literacy Curriculum

• There's a great curriculum on search (with lesson plans, teacher kits, etc.) designed by GCTs.