I try to protect some daily time for learning something new. Surprisingly, sometimes that involves (re)discovering features of technology learning tools that I didn’t realize (or forgot) existed. Perhaps these features didn’t exist at the time I first “mastered” the tool—technology tools evolve. Perhaps, on the other hand, the (re)discovered features didn’t address my needs at the time—my needs change.
Google scares me—perhaps because of my reading of The Circle. But I find myself more and more using a variety of Google apps. In fact, I am considering creating a course just addressing all the Google applications—and their weaknesses.
How well do you know how to use Google search? How well do you know how and when to use Google Scholar? Are you familiar with the support that Google itself gives? Have you discovered the excellent guides developed by Librarians? Someone is always sharing additional less well-known features that might prove useful for finding information more efficiently.
I plan to incorporate a number of Google search challenges based on the links above into my Fall classes—especially into my research seminar.
