Skip to main content

ALERT! (Using Google Alerts as your research robot.)

By Colin Davitt

Do you ever Google things?



Google alerts will crawl the web looking for your specific topic. It will then email you once a day or once a week depending on how you set it up.

I have used this for when Eddie Bauer pants go on sale, when people post about iPads in K-2, anytime someone uses Colin Davitt or Davitt.  

Why do I want an email about when the pants go on sale? 
  • I hate shopping. I hate looking for sale items. Google can send me an email when there is a sale.

Why an email about iPads in K-2?
  • We had some trouble finding information about iPads in the primary grades. We turned over the research to Google and let it find us solid links. This saved us about 15 hours worth of pointless Googling.

Why the Colin Davitt or Davitt search?
  • I wanted to be alerted when someone was posting about me. I want to keep tabs on what is happening on the web so I can react if needed.

How could you use it?
  • for new lesson ideas
  • tips for parent teacher conferences
  • new streaming videos on Netflix
  • new restaurants in St. Louis

The alerts you create are almost limitless.
Note: Not all alerts will magically return amazing results.

Follow these steps to activate your first Google Alert.
1. Make sure you are logged in to a Google account.

2. Google - Google Alerts (or go to google.com/alerts)

3.  Create your alert.

4. Select alert options.

5. Click the blue button to start the process.

This simple process has increased my overall efficiency by 17% on a daily basis.

How might you use this in your daily life?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who is emailing me? The Blue Man Group??? (Add an image to your Google account.)

By Colin Davitt
WHY It is always nice to put a face with a name. Sometimes we need a tiny little reminder of what someone looks like because we don't see them very often. Follow these steps to add/change the image associated with your Google account. HOW Open your email. Click your image. It might just be a blue circle if you have not added something already. Click Change . Find an image you like. Your amazing new image will appear. From now on everyone can put a name to a face!
117 comments
Read more

Annotate PDF? How might I do that?

By Colin Davitt
So I have a PDF and I need to edit it. Here is one method that works pretty well for me. Open Word. Click File .  1. Click Open . 2. Click Browse . 3. Find the PDF you want to annotate. 4. Click Open . Click OK when you see this box. Bam! Your PDF now opens in Word. Note: you maybe have to click Enable Editing at the top of the screen. Finished editing and want to turn it back into a PDF? Click File . 1. Click Save As . 2. Click This PC . 3. Pick a location. I usually save things to my desktop. 4. Click Save as type - and choose PDF. 5. Click Save .
51 comments
Read more

Zoom - How to connect to a Zoom meeting.

By Colin Davitt
This post was created to help anyone who is attempting to connect to a Zoom meeting understand how the process works. Click here for a video tutorial on how to get started with Zoom Continue reading for details on how to connect on an iPad/iOS device, Android phone/tablet, Chromebook and a laptop. While this won't solve every issue, it should take care of getting you quickly connected. The post will be longer than normal, just scroll down to the device you are wanting to connect. Most of these steps only need to be done the first time. Joining the second meeting will be much easier, pretty much just click and join. Please note - I made this post super fast. There are bound to be small errors. iPad/iOS We are using an iPad for this demo. I imagine connecting an iPhone will be nearly the same. Start by downloading the Zoom app from the app store. This is the very first thing you need to do if you don't have the app first the process may be more confusing. You...
111 comments
Read more