Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Google Promotes Information Literacy - Check it out!

Staying current is tough if you don’t read professional journals, follow colleague leaders on Twitter, read industry leader blogs, or following BLOGS sponsored by corporations that have more time than you and I have. Tyranny of the urgent often wins-out for self-preservation. That’s the MO I have been in for the last two months.

Today I picked up a journal and bingo! On the first few pages there were new ideas to implement.
Then, while showing a colleague a way to embed info literacy into her instruction, I stumbled across a new improvement on Google. This, while not revolutionary, was convenient!
While image searching on Google, previously, we would have to click on the "advanced search" option to specifically find images that were public domain (that is, o.k. to use for your own purpose).  They have now moved those options to the left-bar just below the limiters  (see red arrows).
In the picture, I was searching for japanese art.   I could limit this to "find similar images" as the type I really wanted.  That is one way to narrow the search.   On the left bar, notice the narrowing to "labeled for reuse", labeled for commercial reuse, labeled for reuse with modification, etc.   This little tid-bit of information literacy is no longer a click-away.  It's in our student's face. 
BTW -- Google's reuse search, searches places like Wikimedia, Creative Commons, and Flickr pictures uploaded with tags for public domain.    That's one-stop shopping!

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