Quick Google Searches

Google is a service that many of us are quite familiar with, but there's more to Google than meets the eye. For example, did you know that by simply typing "weather" you will get the current weather and the next 4 days forecast for your current location, and it gets even better! Quickly find conversions, time, definitions, when the sun will rise and even more. Check out the quick (I promise it's short ;) video below.




If you like these tips and would like to know even more, check out Google's Features page by clicking here.

Google Book - 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web

So I'm sure I should've seen this before, but I haven't and it's quite cool! In light of Google's recent release of a magazine, Think Quarterly (which seems to be a bit over-run today) I stumbled across a prior release of Google's... 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web. It is a beautifully presented "book" that goes through "20 things" about the web. It ranges in topics with "things" such as: What is a Browser, Cloud Computing, HTML5 and Malware. I think if you've heard words buzzing around about the web that you're not quite sure it's definitely worthwhile to check out. If you feel like you know quite a lot about the web it's still worth seeing the way that they've used HTML5 to create this book. I especially love the switches at the bottom where you can change the background (light or dark) and zoom in or out. The illustrations, by Christoph Niemann are quite enjoyable too!

Sweet Search, A Search Engine for Students

Sweet Search is a search engine that was created for students. All of the results that are displayed when a search is conducted have been reviewed by educators, librarians, or other experts. The intention is for students to be able to "find outstanding information, faster". It seems to me that the results are intended to be reliable data for student research. I do not believe that this site is ideal for being your main search engine, but I certainly think that it has a place. I see this site as being a great tool for teaching students about reliable data sources, and for finding reliable data about a topic quickly. More information comparing the search results of Google, Bing and Sweet Search can be found on The Finding Dulcinea Blog. I hope you enjoy!

Snappy Words

The site this week is www.snappywords.com, an online visual dictionary. What exactly does this mean? Rather than the traditional definition format that you are used to seeing when you search for a word in a dictionary, you will see a graphical representation of different words that explain the meaning.


When you first go to Snappy Words you will probably notice the web of words that appears. This word is generated randomly by the site when you pull it up. The word in the middle of the web is the main word, with the lines and colors that connect to the other words representing various things.

Even more fun is the fact that the word web is interactive. Click and drag to move the web around, scroll up or down to zoom in and out, and you can even click on a word and move it to a different location. You can even hover your mouse on any of the words in the web to see more information. To see the meaning of the various lines and colors, view the key that is found below the word display. If you're wondering what dictionary Snappy Words uses.... 

"The Snappy Words interface queries the WordNet lexical database developed by Princeton University and made available for students and language researchers. This dictionary groups synonyms into synsets through lexical relations between terms. These meanings and semantic relationships are revealed graphically by the interactive web technology made available by Snappy Words." -www.snappywords.com

To search for your own word just enter it into the search window that is found in the upper-right portion of the page. Now do I think this a replacement for the traditional dictionary? No, but I do think it is a fun change of pace that will stimulate some thought with your students. Once students have seen and used the site, maybe they could come up with their own "visual definition" of a word.