...we have come to realise that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school - Ivan Illich |
ICT /
GoogleToolsAndApplicationsGoogle Tools and Applications for Homeschoolers and Educators A collection of information about products supplied by Google which may be of interest to homeschoolers and educatators. Gmail Google mail set the standard for web mail by offering 2.7 Gbof storage for every email account. Gmail mail suggest that you should never need to delete an email from your inbox unless it is junk mail. Your email can be easily searched through in much the same way as you search for information at Google seach engine, for instance if you for an email from a freind just type her name in the search bar and every email with that name in it will be listed. Googl mail do not use folders like traditional email clients, they use filters which can be used to search for emails from a particular address, organisation or subject line,the options are almost endless, enjoy. Note: that once you have a Gmail account you can easily add different services to your profile. Google Reader Ifyou visit a number of websites regularly you will probably be interested in Google reader. Google Reader monitors the websites that interest you and let you know what has been updated. It is like a RSS reader on steroids and can help with information overload since it is an easy way to monitor for changes and updates. For more information try the following sites: Blogger Google offer Blog pages at the following URL http://www.blogger.com Blogging is a very effective way of publishing your information, knowledge and interests online. Here is an example of some excellent Blogger pages. Google Calendar Google offer an online calendaring service similar to Microsoft office calendar. If you are so inclined you can share your calendar information with other members of your family friends or business partners or even make it public however by default your information is kept private. Google Doc and Spreadsheets Google Doc is an online word processor. It allows you to create, format and manage your documents online. If you have already created documents, you can email the documents to your own private address and the documents will be imported into Google docs for retrieval and editing. You can also import documents straight from inside Google docs by browsing to a file or folder on your desktop. I find Google docs tremendously useful for storing information I need to access remotely. I also use Google docs to update documents I am writing. Google Spreadsheet is a Excel clone. You can import existing Excel spreadsheets into Google Spreadsheet and then access and update them from anywhere. Google Notepad Google notepad is a very simple editor or perhaps better described as a handy reference tool for indexing your web research. You can include it as part of your browser and it sits in the bottom right hand corner of internet explorer or Firefox. While researching you can highlight text on the web browser and copy it into your Google Notepad. Google Notepad stores information about where the information was retrieved and you are able to put it into categories and containers. This is a handy tool for homeschoolers researching online. Google Page Creater Google pagemaker is a simple website creator. It allows you to make simple websites hosted by Google. I find it quite cumbersome and not very versatile as I had hoped it would be however if you are interested in creating a few basic pages online this is perhaps an excellent way of doing so. I strongly suspect that Google will make significat improvements to Google Pagmaker Google Labs So where do I find all these interesting products from Google and how do I keep up to date, if you are like me you will be looking for new Google tools and guessing what sort of products Google are going to create next. A very good place to find out more information about new and existing tools is at Google labs. Google Picasso Google Picasso is part of the desktop suite, a small programme which goes onto your desktop which runs on Windows and Mac environments and provides some exceptional photo editing functions. When you install it, it indexes your entire hard drive. It allows you to find and edit your photographs quickly and easily. Google Picasso allows you to easily publish your photographs online. Google Calculator Are you aware of all the following functions you can perform from your web browser. In the Google search bar type the following expression, 100 / 14 Information Technology and Resources |