Like many others -- even my friend's 97 year-old grandmother, on occasion -- I have Googled. I have Googled essential information ("how to get gum out of hair") and inessential information ("who is the wife of Johnny Depp" (and how did she get so lucky?)). I have Google Image-searched for images (like the one in my first post, below) to use in school PowerPoint presentations, poster projects, and, when I was 12, neighborhood flyers advertising my availability as a petsitter. I have Google Mapped my way from Pittsburgh to D.C. and back again, among many other destinations, after checking my Google Mail (Gmail) account; I have used Google Translate more than once to double-check my Spanish grammar in emails to professors and to make sense of webpages in Russian or Farsi. During past final exams weeks I have Google Scholared and Google Booked myself out of very tight spots, then used YouTube (now a Google affiliate) to relax after every paper was handed in. I'm even using Chrome, the Google web browser, to compose this Google blog.
Despite how familiar I thought I was with Google, however, my recent discoveries of Google Reader and Google Presentations (today!) have revealed to me how little I know about the full capabilities of the search-engine site. Should we cut to the chase and call a spade a spade, meaning a monopoly? There's Google Finance and Google Product Search, Google Alerts, even a Google Patent Search; there's Google Calendar, Google Docs, and all of the subcategories of Google Docs. When I figure all of this out, I'll probably feel so triumphant that I'll have to share my accomplishment with my friends on Google+.
I think Google's simplifying the Web in a beautiful (and perhaps dangerous) way. I know that many of us spent the first two weeks of classes feeling overwhelmed with all of the cool, creative platforms that exist for us to utilize if we only know how to do so. It seems tempting to rely on Google for all of our internet needs (especially because it seems like it's extraordinarily able to handle them), but I do think it's important to remember that there are excellent photo sharing, social networking, and mapping sites beyond Google. After all, which search engine appears in the new Amazing Spiderman? Bing might be making a comeback (or getting its start, depending).
Since we're working with Google Presentations to compose our 5-photo narratives for class on Monday, however, I wanted to see with which sub-sites of Google I could tinker (and manage to emerge alive). Specifically, I wanted to try using Google Docs, since before this class I'd only used it once or twice (and never to take notes in conjunction with another student while actually in class). The first feeling I had upon clicking on the drop-down menu "Create" was one of deep regret for the $119 Microsoft Office software I bought just a week and a half ago. What Microsoft's done for $119, Google has done for free: Google Docs is, in many respects, like a collaborative version of Word. Users can create tables, control font size and line spacing, insert images, and use Word Count to see if they've written the 5,000 words their professors have asked for (or to see if they simply need to add more really really really (really) imaginative adjectives and/or adverbs to reach quota). Google Presentations seems to work exactly like PowerPoint (without maybe all of the designer slide options), while Google SpreadSheet seems poised to perform every task required of Excel (or at least the most common and pedestrian uses -- which are, incidentally, my uses). Google Docs even has applications Microsoft lacks, such as Google Form. I opened this and still don't know definitively what it could be used for, though the options under "Add item" suggest that it could be useful in creating assessments (some of the options for "items" listed are Multiple Choice, Paragraph Text, etc). If my guess is correct, I'll probably use Google Form quite frequently as a teacher. Google has its own version of more-expensive drawing and composition software that appears if a user selects "Drawing" from the drop-down menu in Google Docs: this application features a grid, multiple tool sizes and colors, ways to insert images, text, and WordArt, and much more. "Script" also appears in the drop-down menu in Google Docs, though this is definitely not an application for screenwriters or theater buffs. Instead, Google's Script belongs wholly to the information age: it allows users to write their own code for websites.
Google has created an astonishingly comprehensive and user-friendly web of sites and internet services. I know they're tracking my every search term in order to display user-specific ads for new Mizuno running shoes on my browser--but with how helpful and accessible they've made themselves, is it any wonder that Google's Googolplex of users continue to Google?
No comments:
Post a Comment