Thing 12: Hooray for Google!

For this Thing, I decided to play with Google Calendar and iGoogle. As with everything else Google-related, once you have a Google account they're both easy to set up, and I've actually had an iGoogle page for a long time - even if I had sort of forgotten about it.

I'll get the easy discussion out of the way first. I really cannot think of an educational use for iGoogle, beyond the web-searching and suchlike that plain old Google already does. I have mine set as my homepage, so I obviously find it helpful (or at least interesting), but it's not something I see being tremendously involved in the educational process.

Alright, well, there is one thing, and that's the fact that you can incorporate other Google tools into one centralized location. My iGoogle, for example, has a Google Translate section and a YouTube section, and those are both Google applications. Other than that, though, I stand by my previous paragraph.

Google Calendar is another story. While mine looks pretty sad (which is exactly why I don't typically keep a calendar - I don't need to), its simplicity and ease of use cannot be denied. You can share the calendar you create in a number of ways, and this would a really easy way to help a classroom stay on top of deadlines, field trips, test dates, or whatever else has a timeframe attached to it.

Now, I am only going to share my busy/free information in this blog, so as not to make the ladies jealous, but here's my calendar for the forseeable future.