Getting good with Google

In the global world we need people who are able to access, evaluate and use information.

Something I find many people are not good at is using search strategies. On Google docs is a document, Getting good with Google, to help people become efficient at using the web.

I have always felt that these strategies should be introduced in the primary/elementary school and then reinforced and built on each year. In this way they will become adults who are able to access the information they want quickly and effortlessly.

The first thing they suggest is that the settings are changed to 'safe search' - this is something we need to ensure our children are doing.

A lot of the ideas are from the Google Help page but I find that many people don't even know it is there!

At the bottom of the document is an online quiz for the children to complete to see how good they are at doing efficient searches. Great ideas here for teachers in their classrooms.

MyStudiyo

I have just been making a quick quiz to show my students how a Web 2 tool can be used. I have made this one using MyStudiyo. You can add movies and graphics to the quizzes and then children can add these to their blogs or wikis.

Some ideas to use in the classroom:

1. Story writing - the children could have a story they have written on the web site with a quiz to finish
2. Research project - children could write about the findings from a research project on the web site and have a quiz for the viewer to finish with
3. Maths - children could construct maths quizzes to put on the web site and then others in the class could use them

MyStudiyo

Another great Web 2 tool. MyStudiyo allows you to create a quiz (you can add graphics, videos etc as well as text) which you can then embed it into a web site or blog.

You can use this with your classroom which is far more exciting than a written quiz. Children can also create their own quizzes to use in the classroom. I would be very interested to hear of anyone who has had the children creating their own. I am going to create some quizzes to use with my students next year. We are planning a new online learning environment and this will be a good option to use during their course. In this way we (the teachers) should get a clear picture of the student's understanding as we progress. Hopefully we can then identify those needing help early so we can help them.

Making an online quiz and Ten reasons to use blogs in the classroom

I have just been playing around with a quiz maker which is so simple to use. What a great tool for students to use on their own blogs as well as teachers to use.

This one is made at MyStudiyo.com



Have fun.

I also found a video on teachertube that decribes ten reasons why we use blogs in the classroom. Very worthwhile: