Google has been improving their search options almost daily and the improvements are exciting! I experienced Google's new Flight Tracker for myself when I needed to check on my husband's flight yesterday. All I needed to do is enter the airline abbreviation and the flight number, and there were all the details I needed: I didn't even need to hit return!

Need to check the weather for a certain city? Simple enter weather: "name of city". Without even hitting return, you will have a list of weather options with the weather outlook at the bottom of the search options.

Have a question? Type in the beginning of a statement followed by an asterisk.

Want the latest score of your hometown team? Type in the team name for the latest game info and a link for more details.

And the list of info goes on: stocks, conversions, zip codes, and more. Visit Explore Google Search for a complete list of searching options.

Google Teacher Academy -Washington DC

I've just returned from the Google Teacher Academy where I learned an amazing amount of information. I was honored to be among 50 accepted educators out of 340 applicants from all across the country. Sharing what I learned in one blog post would be impossible: I learned so much that my head is still spinning with ideas and action plans. To be sure, I will be blogging more on each individual application.

Going into the academy, I was most expecting to learn about all the cool, new apps such as Google Wave. What surprised me is the extent of information which I learned about apps which I knew well (or, should I say I thought I knew well)!

Such as:

• Google spreadsheets has Magic Fill - automatically completes a list by filling in related items you enter. "Strawberries", "bananas", "peaches"... think quick! 20 more fruits!"
• With the feature "View Together", Google Presentation allows a back channel of information during the slideshow presentation.
• Using Google Books, you can embed certain ebooks onto your website.
• Google Docs not only displays word count, but reading level

One of the highlights of my Google experience was listening to Jerome Burg talk about his Google Lit Trips. Once again, I thought this was a tool which I knew well and needed no further instruction. However, hearing Jerome's passion and his philosophy on motivating students was so inspirational! And when I told him about my idea of using Google Lit Trips for our Read the World even next year on Latin America, he said he would love to be involved! How awesome.

So -as I mentioned, more blogging to come on the wonderful world of Google!