Google Search + Gmail Tips

Gmail! According to Gmail there are over 1 billion people that use Gmail. That's quite a few people almost the population of India. Did you know there are so many improvements you can make to your Gmail account? Check out this video with more information about Gmail tips.

Here are a couple of my favorite features you can easily change and make your life easier and more productive.

1. Google Chat

This feature is Google Gmail Chat. This feature is available on the left side of the Gmail screen. You can add contacts and chat with them much like AOL Instant Messenger. This feature would be helpful if I needed to communicate with coworkers instead of calling them. I could also easily chat with my husband (who is also a teacher) during the day. The chat box can remain open while using Gmail. I could also see this being helpful if you lose your cell phone. You can use it much like a phone and call people. There is also a feature called groups, where you can create a group chat.

2. Preview Pane in Google

This feature is incredible! I love that my e-mail at school has a preview pane, but until now I didn’t know Gmail could too. I believe it is so much easier to check and go through e-mails when you can preview what they say. In order to activate this feature, you go to Gmail > Mail Settings (upper right) > Labs. Scroll down to "Preview Pane," enable it, and save your changes. The screen will then look like the screen shot below. You can toggle back and forth between the preview pane and normal screen by clicking on the button to the left of the settings wheel. You can also do a horizontal or vertical split screen.

Google Custom Search

Have you ever wanted to do a project with your students and wanted them to research online, but the fear of them searching for inappropriate material ruined your project? I have been there multiple times with my 2nd graders. We talk at the beginning of the year about Safari on the iPads and I teach them not to search for anything online unless an adult helps them. Until now, I was unaware of a safe way to encourage students to search for material on the internet. Google Custom Searches are the answer! Check out this introduction video about Google Custom Searches.

Google Custom Searches give teachers the opportunity to limit students to search on particular websites. Let's say you are doing a research project on Presidents. You can find a couple websites and add them to your custom search. For the President project you could add sites like these:

These sites will prevent you students from searching for inappropriate content. However, it is smart to try a couple of searches before sharing the link with your students.

This is what the Custom Search page will look like once completed. You can click on look and feel and change the layout and colors of the search page. In order to share it with your students you'll need to share the Public URL. This could easily be made into a QR code so students could easily access the code without typing in the URL. Once completely finished the Custom Search will look something like this. Good luck using a Google Custom Search in your classroom!