Thing 7

This is what I now see when I open my web browser. You can't see it all because my screen is small (10.1 inches), but I have 2 news sources, Twilight quotes, weather, my e-mail, and horoscope for the day. Ah yes, the penguins. I had to put them there - they follow the mouse! When my husband saw my creation, he remarked, "Wow, so you have all this technology at your fingertips and you are excited about an app that you could have had in 1997?" To him and all others like him I reply, "why mess with perfection?"

In all seriousness, iGoogle is fantastic. It is a one-stop shop for your internet needs. I often am not caught up on the latest news because it takes too long to check every site or newspaper. Now I can get snapshots of every heading! Also, this really saves time on all of the mundane things we do when we jump on the computer before we get down to what we really came for. I'm sure you've done this before - turn on the computer to do work, but first, "Let me just check the weather," or, "I wonder what's playing at the theater tonight," or my personal favorite, "I just can't start working without knowing the -fill-in-the-blank- quote of the day!" Now we procrastinators can see it all in one click! In terms of usefulness for librarians, iGoogle can be set up to find links and quotes from just about anything. I had to stop myself after 30 minutes of exploring just this, but I know there are updates you can get on books and school-related functions.

Another Google product I love is GoogleEarth. I have seen this before, but enjoyed revisiting. This can be used in lessons to link geography to real life. Students can practice location finding, see countries they're studying, look at real life landforms, or simply ignite a spark of interest for geography altogether!