Say the word Google and you will probably think of its most famous tool, the search engine. However Google has a great many apps that you can use in the homeschool classroom with great ease to increase your efficiency. Here are some Google apps that you may like to consider using.
Google Alerts
If you use a Gmail account for your email it is very simple to set up Google Alerts for a specific keyword. For instance if you want to know about “robotics” you can set up a Google News Alert for the term and get the latest information in the field delivered right to your email inbox. If you want “homeschool worksheets” you can set up an alert for new ones on any blog in the blogosphere. You can set up different alerts for each subject and have them filtered into different folders in your email address. That way you don’t waste endless hours trying to sift through them.
Google Translate
Learning new languages is always fun, and very often in books we read or movies we watch we can hear new foreign language words. By having Google Translate handy in the bookmarks of your browser, you can instantly search for the meaning of the foreign words and even hear how to pronounce them right using the little icon for sound below the main field.
Google Calendar
At the beginning of the school year you can set up your homeschool schedule on Google Calendar and then forget about it. Each day the calendar reminders will let you know what you are supposed to cover in the homeschool classroom for each student. Of course the initial keying in can take some time, but once its all set it can be a wonderful way to keep on course throughout the year.
YouTube
The sheer volume of good videos on all subjects available on YouTube is phenomenal. Find a few good channels to follow per subject and you will have interesting videos to share with your homeschool students for just about every topic in their study books. Subscribe to popular channels to be alerted when they post fresh videos.
