A few weeks ago I discovered Pinterest while completing one
of my “23 Things.” At the time I was convinced that I would never find a web
tool that I loved more. I was so wrong! Today I discovered Google Translate. In
previous blogs I have mentioned that I am attempting to learn Italian. What I
haven’t told you is that I am trying to teach myself. With a nonexistent budget for learning
materials the process has been slow with very little achievement. Google
Translate is the pot of gold at the end of my green, white, and red rainbow. The
tool allowed me to translate from English to Italian and Italian to English. Once
the translation is complete the tool creates a list of words with the same
meaning but with a different tense. The absolute best part of this tool is that
you can actually hear the translation in the desired language by pressing the
speaker icon. The tool can translate for every language I have heard of and a
few I haven’t. The tool would be an
amazing assist for teachers with non-English speaking students. It would also
be useful for assisting students in learning other languages and introducing
them to various cultures.
The other Google tool that caught my attention was Google
Books. This tool allows the user to search for books on a global level. Text
that may not be available in print in the United States can often be found
through searching with Google Books. In addition, many of the books can be
previewed for free. I am currently taking a children’s literature class and
have used the tool to help me locate books that are suitable for the course. This
would be a useful tool for locating books to incorporate into lessons or for
students to use when trying to locate research material. Here is an example of
one of the books I found using Google Books. Bat’s at the Library by Brian
Lies.
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