The Finish Line

All good things must come to an end...

In today's society, being web savvy is very important. How do I find the most useful information quickly? How do I type a phrase into the search engine just right so that it will give me what I want?

Everyone uses Google, but how many people use Google to its greatest strengths? Did everyone know that if one wants to search bass competitions but wants to avoid anything to do with the bass fish, one can simply type "bass competition -fish -fishing" into the search bar and Google will omit any search result to do with the bass fish? Or what if one wishes to search Abraham Lincoln but only within Britannica.com? Simply type "Abraham Lincoln site:britannica.com" and Google will only search that particular website for anything to do with Abraham Lincoln. What a way to narrow a search. Google can do this and many more important, time-saving things. Click here for more information.

One not-so-well-known search engine is Wolfram/Alpha. Want to know how to spell Wolfram in Morse Code? Click on "Words & Linguistics", and then scroll down to the Morse Code option. Type in "Wolfram", and there's the answer. If one clicks on "Everyday Life", one can get the local weather forecast, find the punchlines to new jokes, or find the price of gasoline in any American city. Wolfram/Alpha can do these things and so much more. The only down side to the search engine is it costs money if one wants entire access.

I have learned about all kinds of fascinating and useful tools throughout the last seven weeks. I learned how to use the snippet tool on my laptop, how to sign up for a Google account, how to use Adobe Spark, how to build a course in Schoology, how to facilitate discussion with Flipgrid, and so much more.

I have become a more connected educator.