Google Fusion Tables

Google Fusion Tables http://www.google.com/fusiontables/Home/

When I first saw Google Fusion Tables, I was intimidated , but on further reflection I have come to see fusion tables as a great way to express data geographically, and a great way to provide useful spreadsheet experience to students,

Classroom idea: Students assigned  a book for outside reading could  put  location, image url, and online description pertaining to  setting in book onto shared spreadsheet, which would then be transformed into map of reading.

web clipboard

I am sl--oo---owww--ly warming to Google Chrome. Another reason to use it just appeared on my radar with this  improvement. One has to use Chrome and be logged into their Google account , and that has to have  a gmail account  with it ( a lot of requirements I know), but then you get the web clipboard at your disposal.  You  can highlight text and some images from the web, right click and copy them onto web clipboard  and LATER  ON place them in your Google docs. You have 30 days to use the gathered material.  I only wish the clipboard let you paste in the url so you would have a research organizer as well.

A web clipboard for Google Docs http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/02/web-clipboard-for-google-docs.html and http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/02/improved-copy-and-paste-using-web.html


Classroom idea: Hmmm, I really wish this had a url placeholder tool.  But this might be a nice tool  for students who use various computers through the day.  Could it be used as a gathering tool for  practice in synethesizing various ideas?