Google's Personal Research Assistant

This is the time of year when many of your students will be doing research papers of one kind or another.  I have a couple of invaluable resources to share with you and your students.  These resources will assist your students in finding relevant, reliable information while reducing wasted time scanning through massive google search results.

To start, Google has developed a new curriculum called Applied Digital Skills.  This curriculum has lessons targeted to several different age groups and contains a "Share with Classroom" link for easy distribution.  There are two lessons which specifically teach about Research.

Research and Writing  This lesson states that it is geared toward adult learners, however, it contains some great information for secondary students about organizing, planning and checking sites for credibility.  You can pick and choose the video lessons contained in the overall lesson to have your students review.

Research and Develop a Topic  This lesson is geared toward Late Elementary and above.  Part of the lesson instruction contains how to program a welcome screen.  This lesson can be skipped if you want to focus only on the research component.


Next, there is a an absolutely fabulous resource built right in to Google Docs for all students.  It's called Explore, however, I like to refer to it as my Research Assistant.  This amazing little feature will read your paper and offer suggestions for related articles, websites, images and more.  It will also allow you to automatically cite your sources in proper citation format with just the click of a button.  Check it out in the video below.

Remember, if you would like Andrew or myself to come and demonstrate this feature to your class, just hit us up and we will schedule a visit.  It's truly the best part of our jobs!