Five on Friday

1.  I saw this posted on a FB wall and just had to steal:  "It's a Google World and we are just teaching in it."  With that being said, today I would like to show you some Google search tricks I have picked up over the past couple of years.  Most of these came either from my son or a student.  

• Convert units. Whether you want to convert something, try typing in the known unit and the unknown unit to find your answer (like "how many teaspoons in a tablespoon" or "How many seconds are in a day?").
• Do a timeline search. Use "view:timeline" followed by whatever you are researching to get a timeline for that topic.
• Use the image search. Type in your search word, then select Images to use the image search when trying to put a picture to your term.
• Get a definition. If you want a definition without having to track down an online (or a physical) dictionary, just type "definition:word" to find the definition of the word in your results (i.e.: "definition: amazing" will track down the definition of the word "amazing").
• Search within a specific website. If you know you want to look up Thomas Jeffereson in Wikipedia, type in "site:wikipedia.org Thomas Jefferson" to go directly to the Wikipedia page about Thomas Jefferson. It works for any site, not just Wikipedia.
• Search within a specific kind of site. If you know you only want results from an educational site, try "site:edu" or for a government site, try "site:gov" and your search term to get results only from sites with those web addresses.
• Search for a specific file type. If you know you want a PDF (or maybe an MP3), just type in "filetype:pdf" and your search term to find results that are only in that file type.
• Calculate with Google. Type in any normal mathematical equation to get the answer immediately. For example, "2*4" will get you the answer "8.  BTW, I actually saw Mr. Josh Adam from MHES tell students to pull out their Chromebooks for math class.  
• Time. Enter "what time is it" and any location to find out the local time.
• Search for a face. If you are looking for a person and not just their name, type "&imgtype=face" after the search results to narrow your results to those with images of faces.

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2.  Here is a suggestion for writing.  Help you students create a Blogger account.  Blogger is not part of G-Suite but it is a partner with Google and your students can sign in with their Google user name and password.  Years ago when I was in the classroom, my 3rd grade students were given permission to blog.  Student get really excited to be writing for the real world.  And you can set the privacy so that only certain people see the blogs.  

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3.  Want the kiddos to play a game on a topic?  Use this template to do so.  This is not mine; it belongs to a person I follow on Twitter by the name of Alice Keeler.  I love how she coded the slide show so that there are "dice" rolls available.  Notice the word "dice" beside the word Help in the tool bar.  Click here for your copy of this template.  

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4.  Want to combine STEAM with reading?  Try reading The Recess Queen by Alexis O’ Neill and then have the students work together to build a prototype of a the perfect playground.  

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5.  Friday at the Movies - In honor of that Full Harvest Moon we had last Friday.