Why Word Order Matters When You Search

The word order of a search matters in today’s connected world, so 21st Century learners of all ages should understand how search results change when a user rearranges the words. A short video on word order, uploaded by Google’s Search Anthropologist Daniel Russell — check out his Search-Research blog — teaches this lesson effectively.

Use this less-than-two-minute video, recently featured in a blog post at Free Technology for Teachers, as a quick and succinct teaching tool with students, parents, and other educators.

Lots More Fonts for Google Drive!

Until a few days ago, even as I was increasing my daily use of Google Drive, I assumed that font choices were limited.  Then I read a blog post about fonts over at the Education Technology and Mobile Learning blog (a great resource to follow).

Guess what?  We can use hundreds of fonts with our Google documents.

You can follow of the steps, with pictures, at the blog.  I’ve followed them on my laptop. They’re easy, and I and noted the steps here.

Point your mouse to the font list at the top of the page.  Click and hold and your font list opens.  Mouse down to the bottom of the fonts list where it says Add Fonts. (See image at left.)

Another window opens. (See image at right.)

In this window,  all of the fonts you can add-on are to the left-hand side  and the list of what is actually on your Google drive on the right side.

Peruse the list on the left and click on the fonts you want to add. At the top right you can filter the fonts in all sorts of different ways.

Click OK when you have selected the fonts that you want to use.  Once you choose them for one document, they seem to remain in the list for other documents. More on this later, if updates are required.

Users can go back again and again.

One way to filter the fonts is by Date added, so it may be that more new fonts will be uploaded occasionally.

Still to discover is whether fonts will show up no matter what computer you use.

Several Google Drive tutorials are listed in right-hand column of this blog.

Neat Google Searching Tips!

Learn more about Google search lesson plans here.

Every time we search on Google we get millions of hits.  Here are some tips that can streamline your results. Remember that most Google searches are not case sensitive. Give these a try.

• Exclude a word.  For example:  grocery stores -Safeway
  No Safeway hits will be included in your results.

• Search a specific country’s Google site. Sometimes it is good to search through Google links in a specific country rather than for world.
  http://www.google.co.uk, — (notice there is no com, just “co” for country and the country two letter tag)

• Connect an area code with a geographic area.
  Enter the area code in the search box and Google will give you links that tell you about the area code and where it is from.

• Use the word define.                       

Google Launching YouTube for Schools

According to an article on the Mashable blog, Google is launching a new YouTube arm that will include convenient educational bells and whistles designed for the world of schools, students, and teachers. YouTube.edu contains features that make the service easier to use for schools that normally restrict YouTube, however the new site will be useful to any teacher that wants to customize videos for classroom viewing.

Teachers from around the country and 600 organizational partners such as the Smithsonian and TED helped to select the initial content for the site and YouTube edu organizes video materials by grade and subject.