Searching for Inspiration

Hey! Welcome back.
This week in class we continued to learn about Google and all it has to offer. We explored Gmail, Google as a search engine, and creating our own search engine. 😲
I think my favorite part of this week is learning about the apps that I use every single day.

I don't know about you but I've had a Gmail account for over ten years. I tried creating a new one when I got married but my first one will always be my tried and true account. Luckily I was smart enough not create a crazy one like unicornhottie87. Ugh, first of all hottie? AND using 87 definitely shows my age, not a good look. I digress.
If you are learning about google along with me do yourself a favor a create your own free gmail account here.
Next watch this quick video about gmail and all the amazing tips on how to use it.

As a teacher one of my favorite tips is the archive and send button that you can add. What this does is send your reply to an email that needs attention but archive the thread to a more general email box so its out of sight, out of mind BUT not deleted. We teachers get tons of emails that need replies but don't necessarily need to be right in front of us all day every day. This tip will be super helpful it cleaning up my inbox.
If you're curious on how to do this check out the directions below.

Along with gmail we also really dove into Google as a search engine. There are so many amazing things that you can do. Google is not just a type and search, search engine. Its a calculator, a dictionary, you can also search images and reverse search images (I'll get into that in a second).

If you are searching for very specific things like the title of a book you can narrow your search down to really weed out unwanted results. Google is a powerful tool!
As an art teacher one of my goals is to expose students art and visual inspiration all the time. Because I teach an prerequisite class I have to assume my students don't know much about art in general. So having them use Google Image search is a powerful resource that I want them tapping into often.

If you've never tried a Google Image search try it out here. 

Another amazing tool is reverse image search. Once you get to Google Image search click on that icon that looks like a camera. Next upload an image and see what pops up! 

I uploaded this image,

and this is what popped up in the search results.

crazy right? 

The picture is of my husband and me in the bottom of Antelope Canyon. It not only recognizes that but brings up pictures the specific canyon and the definition of a canyon. So cool. 

If a student a researching images for a project in my class and reverse image searches they are not only finding images similar to what they searched but real world connections and references connected to their subject matter. Can you say dream teaching tool???

Alright as I take a few deep breaths from my excitement I want to talk about the final tool we learned in connection to search engines. 

I know as an adult your thinking search engines are huge and not necessarily filtered. So as a teacher how can you be okay letting students searching freely. I totally agree but there is a way around that by creating your own search engine. 

I'm sure you've haphazardly typed in a word to Google and gotten a ton of results that you then must go through to find the one that best suits your needs. Well by creating your own search engine you can guide anyone or in my case my students to the sites I want them to explore and feel confident that they are a) not wasting their time and b) searching safely. 

For class I created my own search engine for our first project we are currently working on, Zentangles. 

By setting this up I can allow the right kind of results to pop up for my students. 

If you are wanting to create your own search engine, its super easy. Watch this step by step tutorial.

Well, have I given you enough fun tools to explore this week? I hope so. I know I'll be using all of these tools regularly not only in the classroom but personally. 

Until next week 👋