Thing #12--Google tools

The two tools that I have explored already are Google Translate and the Picasa tool. I often use translate while working on my Spanish homework; NOT to cheat! Often times I plug in a sentence I just wrote to make sure it translates correctly, or sounds right. I also use it to translate sentences or questions that I have a hard time understanding, for example if I can't figure out what it's asking me how can I answer it? So I just plug it into Google translate to make sure I can figure out how to answer it. Or if I'm in a hurry and I forget what a words means and my dictionary isn't nearby I can quickly type in a word for it to translate. The really cool thing is that Google Translate picks up on the language you type in and if you often translate to English to Spanish or Spanish to English it picks up on that and will jump back and forth without you clicking too many buttons to change things. It makes it super easy to use and I'm impressed with how smart the program is! It can be very helpful for students that have a similar problem understanding questions, but I would not give it to them the first day of class, I would show it to them after they've learned to conjugate and translate on their own. Otherwise it's like giving them the teacher's edition of a book and telling them to do the assignments without looking at the answers on the page. There's also the danger that things won't translate correctly, so they need to learn how to do it properly first before asking a translator things.

As for Picasa I explored that in the web 2.0 tool exercise and I loved all of the effects and such you could use. So, to brighten up my blog here's another example of how you can play with a photo in Picasa!

Woo-hoo! Me with long hair and a few pounds heavier. This fun effect emulates a polaroid, a thing I don't think our students will recognize but well, it looks cool to them right? Again I think this tool is more fun for personal use and can be a fun intro into photoshop and effects for students (especially the younger ones since photoshop can get complicated very fast).