Google is pretty much synonymous with search. Though in the earlier days of the web, people went different places like Lycos, Yahoo, and Altavista, it's second nature for most of us to turn to Google nowadays when we have a question or need a resource. BING? Sorry, no.
The thing about web search, when you think of it...it's language. We ask a question and get an answer. The results can be a list, a description, a fact, a picture to describe.
Often, a search can be very helpful when we discover those pesky gaps in our students' world knowledge or vocabulary.
Most of us, including myself, probably turn most readily to the little Google field in the upper right corner of the Safari iPad app, which indeed does the job pretty handily. However, Google has been steadily improving its free (of course) Google Search app, and it now includes speech-to-text (Voice Search), regardless of the version of the iPad you are using. Additionally, depending on the type of search you are making, the app will read aloud the results (so, text-to-speech), a feature related to what Google calls its Knowledge Graph, which helps zoom in on the most important facts about real-world items. Google gives us some ideas for the types of questions that work well with Voice Search.
To see how the Google Search app can be useful in your interventions, check out this terrific contextual demo centering around one of my favorite places: Cape Cod. I need to go to there right now. *Sigh* I hate January.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
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