- We started with a look at the new 'show options' tab in Google, here you are able to refine your search down to just videos, reviews, blogs or forums. You can also specify a date range of when the internet article was made available. Two of the new features that look very helpful are the timeline and the wonder wheel. The Timeline will allow you to specify hits that have come from a specific timeframe, while the Wonder wheel looks rather like a mind map and allows you to refine your search by giving you subsets of your original search and continues to do this as you click through.
- We had a quick look at the Australian Newspaper site which contains historical Australian newspapers from 1803 - 1954 and is searchable.
- Next we were shown Big tent this is an online space for managing groups, it includes forums, event postings, email notifications, photo and file sharing and is a free communication tool.
- Twitter was reviewed and we were given examples of how following certain things can be an advantage (apparently Jamie Oliver has a good Twitter site).
- Google Wave isn't available yet but it looks great. Here you can combined email, photos, collaborative document editing, forums, language translation, play games and replay games, discussions and documents changes. It is set to make email old hat.
- We had a quick run through Google books, Google docs, Google sites with Google sites of particular interest as it is a quick and easy way to get a webpage up and running.
- We also looked at two Bibliography creator, Worldcats build a bibliography and ScotchBib both will do Harvard referencing style.
- Yourtutor can be used by any member of the Ipswich Council Library to obtain help with maths, science, english, research and study skills. FREE LIVE online tutoring is available Monday through Friday from 4pm – 8pm.
This was well worth a look and I will definitely be attending version 3 next year if offered!
