Google Tools You Have Never Heard Of 

@LisaBerghoff*

There are only a few short weeks of school left and I am not sure our brains can handle too many new things right now. We are hyper focused on what we need to do to get across the finish line of the school year. However, while we are encouraging our students to keep learning, I thought it would be a good idea to give you some helpful, interesting, and lesser-known tools within Google that are not a heavy lift in terms of brainpower, but can be powerful in the classroom. 

Here are five. You can manage five.

1. Reverse Image Search:

You can upload a picture to Google's image search at images.google.com to find out more information about that picture. This is a great way to find out more about products. Have that item in your classroom that you love but can't remember where you got it? Snap a picture and do a reverse image search.

2. Fact Check Tools

This is a search tool from Google that allows you to browse and search for fact checks on any topic. Facts are provided by journalists and researchers. This is great to help bust information that is circulating around social media. Items will have a rating to help you determine its credibility. It will also indicate how often it has been checked. 

Go to toolbox.google.com/factcheck/explorer

3. Google Fonts

Google provides over 1,400 web fonts that you can use within Google tools or download. Go to fonts.google.com You can filter and search the fonts to find just what you are looking for. 

4. Verse By Verse

Write a poem with AI-powered help from famous poets. 

Go to sites.research.google/versebyverse

You can select up to three poets as your muses. Then, you choose your poem structure and the number of syllables in each line of verse. Finally, you will begin typing your poem. After your first line, you can look to your muses for ideas. 

5. Data GIF Maker

We know that visuals can have a strong positive impact on learning. We also know that data literacy is a skill that is highly valued in the workplace and will likely be even more so in the future. The data gif maker is a simple but powerful tool that allows you to compare data and create stories with gifs. You can choose from three different styles. Just enter your data and click to create your gif.

Did you already know about these? What are some that I missed? 

*Special thanks to Eric Curts for inspiring this post and sharing his resources under a creative commons license.