Google for Educators

While working on the Flat Classroom Project, I've been learning about Thomas Freidman's flattners. One of the topics in the Flat Classroom Project is "Google Takes over the World", which always makes me smile but in a good way. I personally love Google and their wide array of products and solutions that make my life easier, especially when working with technology.

As I read Jamie's blog about the lack of technology use in the the classroom she is in for her level 3 field experience, I went looking to see how hard it would be to find information for educators on Google's products.

Lo and behold I found a post on A GeekyMomma's Blog, titled "The Google Salad Bar", which was the analogy that most teachers think of Google only as a Search engine, which is the same as going to a salad bar and only eating the lettuce.  In this post she had a link to Google for Educators which is an excellent site listing all of the different Google tools including webinars on how their being used in classrooms and even lesson plans.

I think that with resources such as these any teacher should be able to integrate technology into their classroom.

New Google tool - Google SideWiki

Google released a new tool a couple of weeks ago called, Google SideWiki, designed to for people to help and learn from others as you browse the web. SideWiki has been included as a feature of the Google Toolbar for FireFox and Internet Explorer and is being added to Google Chrome as well.

One of the really cool features is the ability to post to Blogger with it as well. While I haven't had a chance to try it out myself the buzz about it online is mostly positive, with a few thoughts on how to keep down the flame wars.

Have you heard of Google SideWiki? If so what do you think so far? How could it be useful in the classroom?