It Just Keeps Getting Better...(Thing 6)

Now, we may no longer have to search alone--there is a new collaborative tool for group searching, "Search Together." It has features such as a drop-down menu to see (con)current collaborators, and enables a group's members to work together online simultaneously. Another great feature for the average person is allowing users to save their results to share with others in the future.

Rather than recapitulate the recent New York Times article (Sunday, November 23, 2008) where I first learned about this, I suggest that that you take a look for yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/business/23novelties.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=The%20Online%20Search%20Party&st=cse. "Search Together," is in a free test version at http://research.microsoft.com/searchtogether. I am going to try and think of an application that my students could use. The only potential catch is that it is designed to work within the Internet Explorer 7 browser, so that may be an issue for some users. Talk about productivity plus! Now, it's time to get back to the real world of student projects.

I have succeeded in creating an iGoogle home page that I enjoy for personal communications but prefer to maintain my current school webpage and email for professional communications. In many other countries, especially those in Europe and Latin America, people prefer some degree of separation between work and personal life. That is an approach that has served me well. North Americans tend to conflate jobs and personal identity. My job is what I do, not who I am.

Google docs may eventually help to improve my productivity--it would be ideal if I only taught two classes a day and had time to play around with it to the extent that I would like. I plan to create a Spanish-language wiki in the near future to encourage communication among students and between students and me. I think that it would encourage a degree of candor and greater freedom to share ideas at one's convenience, rather than in a context governed by schoool schedules.