Thing 12 of 23 Things: Google is Not Just for Searching Anymore

The name Google has become one of those household terms, usually employed as a verb, meaning to search online for information. This reminds me of a joke my sisters told me last year:

What do turkeys do on the internet?
(They google, google, google!)<----highlight what's in between the parentheses if you sincerely give up! heheheeee....

So the Google tools I've explored are Google Calendar and Documents. 

I really like that you can use a shortcut in Google Calendar so you can post a reoccurring event only once, but it automatically posts it for every day that it occurs. I posted my class schedule and am so grateful that that option is available. It would have been a pain to post the same schedule every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of the semester! This tool would be useful for a teacher, because 1) it's free, 2) you can access it online from any computer, 3) you can have reminders emailed to you about the events. Assignment due dates, parent teacher conferences, staff development meetings, etc., can be scheduled. Different calendars can be made and organized with viewing options to separate personal from professional schedules. Several websites have a "add date to Google Calendar" option for events you may be interested in. APSU provides that option with the calendar of events.

I also like Google Documents, because, like Dropbox.com, you can upload files and access them online from any computer. What's different about Google Docs is that is provides a tool to create documents, such as presentations (comparable to Powerpoint), spreadsheets, text documents, etc., as well. You can share them with other people by sending a link or keep them private. A drawback, though, is that if you upload a Powerpoint presentation and try to view it through Google Docs, the formatting changes a bit, and some of the photos and graphics may not appear. Students can take advantage of this file sharing of documents and presentations, because it doesn't actually send a file, just an access link. That means no files to lose, no thumbdrive to be corrupted!