Google Master Class MOOC

A while ago, Marie posted here about teaching her students better Google searching skills. I was looking at what Google makes available and was thrilled to locate the excellent MOOC they developed on Power Searching and Advanced Power Searching. Visit that one link to enter, and choose either course. There is a nice intro that tells you what they teach in an outline format. I like the course a lot and have used a piece of it in my Advanced Legal Research class.

A student recently sent me another link, from Time online that shows readers 11 Google Tips and Tricks. Similar sites:

BoyGenius http://bgr.com/2014/08/13/top-25-google-search-tips-tricks/.
Distractify http://news.distractify.com/geek/google-tips/
Digital Trends http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/the-35-best-google-search-tips-and-tricks/
Lifehacker Student list http://lifehacker.com/google-tips-and-tricks-every-student-should-know-1508121671 (this one has less overlap; but is brief.)
Lifehacker Top 10 list http://lifehacker.com/top-10-clever-google-search-tricks-1450186165
Techradar http://www.techradar.com/us/news/internet/25-handy-google-search-tips-and-tricks-1260823
Teachhub 100 Tricks for Teachers http://www.teachhub.com/google-teachers-100-tricks

There is a lot of overlap among these various sites. But each of them adds something new and different. All add illustrations to the classic Google Tips and Tricks. From this page, you can also reach a number of other entertaining Google pages such as Google Doodles, and Google Playground.

The decoration for this post came from the Google Doodles collection, and is the Doodle for Loy Krathong Day, which turns out to be a "picturesque" festival in Thailand "...when people gather around lakes, rivers and canals to pay respects to the goddess of water by releasing beautiful lotus shaped rafts, decorated with candles, incense and flowers onto the water." It sort of celebrates the end of the rice harvest, thanking for bountiful water needed for rice and also floating away anger and grudges. (Explanation from http://www.bangkok.com/whats-on-events/loy-krathong.htm) This year, the festival fell on November 6. In case you want to fly to Bangkok for what looks like a perfectly magical celebration, the celebration falls on the night of the first full moon at the end of the rainy season. And between the moonlight and the little candle lotus rafts, it sounds lovely.