“Google Universe”
Written on April 1, 2007 – 9:39 pm | by Ed Warkentin
I heard a podcast a while back, and thought it was absolutely fabulous, and knew that I had to share what I learned here. The podcast was a presentation by Chris Walsh called “Google Universe”. This post will be a different style – kind of a list of tidbits of notes that I took while listening. If you want full sentences, and complete explanations…in this case, you’ll have to go listen to it yourself.
Further down, I’ll also include some Google tips that I picked up from an article in
1. Where did the name come from?
“Googol” = the number that is 1 w/ 100 zeroes behind it
“Googol-plex” = the number that is 1 with a google number of zeroes behind it
2. Where can I find all the other features? Just above the search bar, click on “More”, then “Even More” to see LOTS AND LOTS of more features that Google has created!!
3. Google Image search – Click “Images” just above the search field.
Or, type “pics” or “pictures” as one of the search terms
4.Built-in dictionary
define:innovation
Definitions AND sources are listed!
5. File types (This one’s AWESOME!)
From Advanced Search, select “File Format” and choose PPT, for example, to find only Powerpoint presentations relevant to your search terms. Your results will ONLY be ppt’s!
6. Mobile phone compatibility!
Google is working to make as much of its features compatible with mobile phones. During this presentation, Chris demonstrating how this was a more powerful feature than calling ‘411’!
7. Google Home Page
Similar to MyYahoo pages, Google allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and customize a home page with the information you want to see, all in one place
8. Google Alerts = “Searches that come to you via email”
Good example of a principal that did set up an alert for a search of his school name and the word “bomb”. Lots of time went by since he set up the alert, and lo and behold! – he got an email – a student had blogged about this, and he was able to quickly deal with the issue.
9. Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Online word processor and spreadsheets
Collaborate VERY effectively; Much like a wiki
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The following are Google tips that were published in an article by Jeffrey Branzburg in Technology & Learning in 2004. It was interesting that I do some of these, I use “Advanced Search” for some of these, and some of these are a bit obscelete.
- Plus and minus signs (typing + before the term will include it; typing – will exclude it)
- Tilde sign – typing “~” before the search term will also search for synonyms of the search term
- OR (searches for either of the search terms)
- Type your calculation, like “sqrt(267)“, and you will be given the answer (in this case, to “What’s the square root of 267?”
- Definitions: type “definition”, followed by word)
- I dunt spel so gud – It has a spell-checker, which anticipates what you meant to type. It asks, “Did you mean…“
- News: If your search term is related to current news, there will be a section at the top of your hit list labeled “News results for…” with direct links to the related news story.
- Find an addresss (type in first name, last name, and city to find a person’s address & phone number)
- Maps – Type street address, and you will be given a GoogleMap of the location
- Reverse phone lookup (Type in phone number: (XXX) XXX-XXXX)
- Delete your personal information from Google database for Maps, Phone Book, and Address Features, go to www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html to request removal
Sadly, I must admit that I don’t use all of these … yet. Thinking about them makes me drool over the possibilities, though. It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?
Writing this all down helps me to think though what’s possible, again, to think about what my next step will be.
If any of you have any additional tips to share, please comment on this article to share with the rest of us!
Tags: Google
