I signed up to receive weekly updates from Google alerts about several subjects. Because I would like to teach in Special Education, all I had to do was punch in the words "special Education" to be updated about and Google does the work for me. I also signed up to receive updates about Rick Santorum because I would like to see what he does and how he acts to further be able to make the decision about how to vote. I think Google alerts can be very useful to keep track of certain subjects. It is easy and I don't have to search for articles they come to me.
I also set up an i Google page. It says to make it public but.....I have no idea how. It may be public? This is the address http://www.google.com/ig, but that doesn't seem to be very identifiable. Anyway, this is a fairly fun little Google tool. I enjoyed creating it, you can search through numerous gadgets to place on your i Google. I chose to have my email, my calendar, some jokes, a hamster and some turtles that are semi interactive, the weather, and CNN. I also have it linked to my Facebook profile.
I am unsure how either of these tools could be useful in my teaching career. I suppose there could be a use for the alert system, if the class is studying a certain subject I could set an alert to make sure what we are learning is current. For instance, if we are following the Iditarod in Alaska, i could set up an email alert to stay in touch with current information without having to go look for it.
I enjoyed looking at all of these tools and can see an application for each in my life. I am hoping to learn more about how to use them in my classroom as well.
