Kart00 - Sweet little search engine

kart00
Originally uploaded by cobannon71

Kart00 is a search engine that gives you your results in a "mind map" type format. What I found very interesting about the results window is that the pages it finds are presented as small icon screen shots and are attached to blob-like bubbles that represent categories within your search.

In addition to the results in the main window, to the left you'll find other related categories. If you hover your mouse over them the links in the main window pulse, for lack of a better word. As you click through some of the categories, new ones appear. It's worth taking a look at and would be very interesting to show students the related categories their search comes up with that they may not have thought of themselves.

Survey Says!

Want a quick, simple way to gather and share data? Then you need to take a look at Google Docs' newest feature!

In Excel, you can create a very flexible survey on the fly and have it up and running within minutes with a link to a web-based questionnaire. Participants fill it out and the results are automatically added to the spreadsheet.

What did I love most? The fact that I didn't have to do anything to set up the spreadsheet! After you created it, you save it, click the share tab, and then select the form creation option and it walks you through the rest. As for distribution, you have the option of emailing the form or distributing the link to the form. I tried both and didn't have luck with the email form sending back the results, but the web-based form worked like a charm. I also embedded the results into my wiki, which is updated every five minutes with new incoming data. Feel free to give it a try and check the results. Oh, almost forgot! Participants do NOT need an account or to sign in to Google Docs in order to complete the survey or poll that was created.

The downside? You can't control who responds to your survey if the link gets emailed outside of the circle it was sent to and there is nothing to stop participants from responding more than once to the survey. However, if you just need to gather some quick data, it's a snap to use!

Reality Check - Faceless!

Am I a name that just floats out there in my school district without a face to go with it? Apparently I am. I recently was faced with this humbling not to mention discouraging fact the other day when I was working with a pair of teachers. One of them I had never met, but the other I had taught before and she concurred that I was this mysterious entity that emailed without a face attached.

Yikes!

But after reflecting on this, I realized they were right. In a rapidly growing district with 12,000 students, it's difficult for one person to make an impact. I try to reach as many as I can, one or two teachers at a time. A pebble in a large body of water, I know, but I'm hoping for ripples. Lots of them. Until then, I do what I can to support those who have a spark already. Maybe I'll get lucky and there will be a fire? Anyone in the same situation out there with advice, I'd welcome it.

Flickr Photo credit: kevsunblush