Personalizing the Internet

Last week's class was really interesting because I was introduced to several new features through Google that allow me to personalize the information I want to retrieve from the Internet.

Google Alert
One of the tools explored was Google Alert that allows you to set up an e-mail notification for a topic or phrase of your choice. Google will then send you an e-mail as often as you specify informing you of the current web resources from their search relating to your topic. For example, my topic is "elementary science experiments" because I am very interested in teaching science through a hands-on approach that integrates with the rest of the curriculum. So once a week, I get an e-mail listing websites that contain information about science experiments in the elementary setting. I think this is very helpful for me as an educator because it cuts down on the time I have to spend searching for relevant material and resources. I can see how this feature would be very helpful for teachers in their quest to keep up with the latest developments in their areas of interest. I think it would also be useful in an older elementary classroom to show kids a different approach to searching the Internet.

Google Reader (aggregator account)
This feature allows you to subscribe to the RSS feed provided by many websites, and therefore easily track updates for your favorite websites. My account allows me to easily see who has updated information on their blogs for the CEP course all in one place without having to individually check each blog. This would also be a helpful feature to utilize as a future teacher because it allows you to see when sites are updated in an organized and efficient manner. This saves the teacher time and energy, as well as, make sure your students have the most up to date information. Following a currently developing news story as a class could be easily done, tracking updates on a particular unit topic especially in science because new ideas are constantly being introduced. And if each student in the class had a blog this would provide a way for them to easily check for updates.

iGoogle
This was my favorite feature from this week. iGoogle allows you to choose content to add to a personalized web page with the famous Google search bar at the top. I set up a personalized home page for myself complete with a beach theme. This is a very nice feature because when I check my home page in the morning I can see the local weather, my calendar, news, whether or not I have new emails, and a quote of the day all on one page. There are endless other possibilities to content to add as well such as games, YouTube videos, recipes, etc. This is something I think would be very helpful to show my students even if it cannot be directly applied in the classroom because it provides a way to condense the vast amount of information available on the Internet.

All of the features this week are very helpful tools to be able to use when searching the Internet. Its amazing how much information is available at your finger tips and the above mentioned tools are just a couple of ways you can personalize the information.