First, I explored Picasa Web Albums. I created an account and added a set of pictures with captions. I was not overly impressed with Picasa Web Albums. I think Flickr is more flexible and has more features. I also enjoy Flickr more because of their Creative Commons feature and their virtually unlimited free space. Picasa Web Albums also does not have groups to join, and you are limited in terms of free space. I made a typing error in the description for the group of pictures I added, and I cannot figure out how to edit it. I would hate to think I have to delete it and start the process over. There has to be a way to change it, but I cannot figure it out. It is not quite as user friendly in that regard. For the purpose of educational use, it is more difficult to find Creative Commons pictures, but it can still provide visual experiences for students who search for pictures, just like Flickr.
My Picasa Web Album
I explored Google Labs and ran across my second tool called Google Sets. The tool is very simple and fun to use. You enter 5 like items, and you can chose for Google Sets to generate either a large set or a small set of items related to the initial 5 prompts you provide. Each set is generated in a table. If you click on an item in the table, it performs a Google search for you.
I think this would be a great way for teachers and students to brainstorm ideas. It can pull up topics you might not think of that are related to the material you are covering in class. You could also have students play with Google Sets to illustrate relationships between words. They could analyze what items are included in a set to determine how they are related, if at all. I included a set of prompts and the results to show you the end product.
Google Sets: Prompts - earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains, land slides, caves
Google Sets: Results
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