Two infographics with tips for becoming a Power Google User!

Google is an excellent research and search tool, but there are some tips and features that a lot of people don't know about. These two inforgraphics have some great tips and information on getting more out of Google.

(click on image to view larger, or download and view)

 HackCollege.com 

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citelighter - Store, organize, and share your education and research for free

Citelighter is a free tool that helps you to do research online and capture your research notes easier. Using a toolbar in your browser, you can easily clip the important information and notes and then save it all to your account. You can organize it and even format a bibliography. It is being touted as "Evernote for Education". While it can clip and organize your research like Evernote, it adds the bibliography function.

You can highlight and save your notes, instead of cutting and pasting, and then simply organize your ntoes in the drop down window from the toolbar. You can even add your own notes and comments right with your research.

This is a great tool for anyone doing research online. Check it out. http://www.citelighter.com/

Google launches free online classes to help you learn better internet search skills

Google is having a lot of announcements today at the Google I/O conference with lots of updates and new products. (Go to Android Central to get updates on all the news).

But yesterday they announced something that is a great resource for educators and students alike. "Power Searching with Google" is a free, online community based course that helps participants learn how to do better searches and use some of the cool features of Google, such as using the search box as a calculator and finding data right from the search box itself.

The course contains six 50-minute classes, interactive activities to practice your new skills, community integration and connections with Google Groups, Google+, and Hangouts on Air (with search experts) and Googlers will be available to help. You can even get a printable Certificate of Completion upon passing the post course assessment.

Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10th and participants can take them on their own schedule during a 2 week window.

Registration is open from June 26, 2012 to July 16, 2012. We recommend that you register before the first class is released on July 10, 2012!
New classes will become available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday starting on July 10, 2012 and ending on July 19, 2012.
Course-related activities will end on July 23, 2012.

Teachers can take the course and then share what they learn with their students next school year.

You can also go to the Google Inside Search page for other tips and help with better searching that can be used by students and educators.


Source: Official Google Blog

Related:

Lots more great, free resources from Google (especially for education)

Zotero - collect, organize, cite, share research sources

Zotero is a free tool that you can use to collect, organize, cite and share resource sources. You simply set it up and then click the "Save to Zotero" icon in your Firefox web browser. Chrome and Safari plug-ins are in Beta now.

There are also plug-ins for Word and OpenOffice that allow you to citations and bibliographies directly into your document.

Zotero stores all of your research in a searchable interface, supporting PDF's, audio and video, images, web page snap shots and more.

•  Collect
 
•  Organize
 
•  Cite
 
•  Sync
 
•  Collaborate

There is a Groups function for sharing and collaborating, forums, documentation, and a list of users by topics.

If you use it with a lot of research and data, you can upgrade your storage for a fee.

All PDF books from National Academies Press are now FREE

The National Academies Press is the publishing arm of the National Academies and publishes reports from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. There are over 200 books per year published a topics ranging from science to engineering and health and even Education.

There is currently over 4000 titles available in PDF format and they can now all be downloaded for free, either by chapter or by entire book.

There are some great reports and books on science, education, computers, earth science, health and medicine, security, environmental, and much more.

You do have to create a free account if you are going to do lots of downloading, but you can continue as a guest also.

This is a great resource for teachers and students looking for research and reports on different topics.

Here's a listing of all of the sub-categories in Education:

Google Alerts - get email updates with Google results based on your search topic

Google Alerts is a service from Google that sends email updates to you based on the latest Google results (web, news, etc.) from your choice of query or topic.

You can use Google Alerts to monitor developing news stories, keep tabs on sports teams, or get alerts on topics that you are teaching in your classroom.

I have a Google Alert set up for "physics", "educational technology" and then I add new one's for specific topics I'm looking for.

You enter your search terms, select type (everything, news, blogs, video, realtime, discussions), select how often you want alerts sent to you, volume of results (best or all), and then the email address you want the alert sent to. You can even get a preview of your results before you subscribe.

This is a great way to keep up on trending topics or specific topics for your classes and students can use it for their research.

Evernote - some great ideas for using it in education

As anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows, I'm a huge fan of Evernote. I use it for everything (pun intended).

The Evernote Blog has an Education Series where they post articles, case studies, and tips for using Evernote in education. Here are some of the highlights:

Evernote as a research tool - explains how to use Evernote while doing research to take notes, attach files to your notes, use web clippings, collaborate with others, search your notes, and more.

How Evernote Got Me Through College - story of how a college student used Evernote to get organized and how he used Evernote for his final project.

10 Tips for Teachers Using Evernote - A teacher shares how he uses Evernote to prep for class, use in class, use after class, and in general as a teacher. Some great tips and ideas here.

10 Great Ways Students Can Use Evernote to Study Smarter, Not Harder - written by a student - take notes, organize handouts, take photos as reminders, organize research, and more.

Evernote is a great tool for educators and students. I highly recommend it as an essential tool.