Google News Timeline

Google News Timeline

This is another great product from Google and is a feature on Google Labs. The Google News Timeline organizes your query in a graphical timeline. For example, if you type "Spain" in the Query box on top, it will generate all the news about Spain from different newspapers in the form of a timeline and you can read about what's going on in Spain. Remember to put the word in quotes if you are looking for that exact phrase.

This is a great way to talk about current events in different parts of the world.

You can read more about the News Timeline in the Google News Blog. Read about Introducing Google News Timeline.

360 Cities

360 Cities- World Panoramic Photography

Imagine showing your students a 360 degree view of a marketplace in Italy and then asking them to write or speak about what they see. Imagine if they could zoom in and take a closer look at the view. Imagine standing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower with your students while still sitting in your classrooms. This is possible if you go to 360 cities. It is a site where people post their panoramic photos of different places.
Go to the 360 Cities website and search for the city that you would like to see. The website has a Help section that explains how to navigate the photos and use the website. There is also a section that explains how you can create panoramic photos.

Google Earth has a layer for 360 cities. If you are using Google Earth you have to make sure that you check the box for the 360 cities in the Layers section under Gallery. You can go to any city, for example, Rome, and if there are any 360 photos available in that city, you will see red circular 360 Icons. Click on it and you will get a 360 degree view of the place.

Here are some examples:

Marienplatz in Munich


At the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris


Cathedral (Mosque) of Cordoba in Spain


Havana Airport - on my way out of Cuba in Cuba


Badaling Great Wall 2 in Asia


Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France in Paris


Coliseum in Rome



Here are some videos about 360 cities:

Odiogo

Turn your blog into a podcast by using Odiogo. Add an audio feature to your blog so that viewers also have the option of listening to your blog postings either on your blog or by downloading them and listening to your postings on their iPods, MP3 players, phones or computers.

You will notice that all my postings have a 'Listen Now' button below the title. Odiogo converts the text to speech making it convenient for visitors.

Although, presently, the only language that Odiogo supports is English but they are working on adding other major European and Asian languages.

Click the links below to find out more information about Odiogo:

Odiogo Demo.
Odiogo FAQs
Odiogo Blog

Blogger

Blog is short for weblog.
Blogging has become a platform where people can express their ideas and share it with the world.

Blogger is a blog publisher that can be used to create blogs very easily and efficiently. There are many gadgets that can be added to your blog. If you look at this blog, you will see some gadgets on the right. You can add a calendar, a blog roll of your favorite blogs, maps, clocks, and gadgets from other websites.

Here are some videos to help you start or modify your blog:

Social Bookmarking

DELICIOUS

Don’t you find it inconvenient that you cannot bookmark your favorite websites on every computer you use in one go. Delicious is the answer to this problem. With this social bookmarking tool, you can save your favorite links to delicious and access them from any computer anywhere. This saves you the trouble of having to save the link on to every computer you use.

I highly recommend this site to everyone. One of the most important features of this tool is that you can create tags for whichever site you bookmark. For example, if I find a website on the Spanish Royal Family, I can tag it as ‘family’ and ‘culture’. In this way, if I am looking for a website related to family, I can click the ‘family’ tag or if I am looking for a website on culture, I can click on the ‘culture’ tag. The website on the Spanish Royal Family will be saved in both sections. I can have multiple tags. It helps narrow the search for a particular website that you may have saved among the numerous others.

By default, all bookmarks are made public to all delicious users but there is also a ‘do not share’ option while saving the website. You can use delicious as a place to save useful links for yourself and your colleagues. In this way, you can share links with each other.

Learn more about this tool by clicking here - More about Delicious. You can add your favorite websites to delicious by using a tag button installed in your tool bar. This is installed when you register for delicious. Click here to learn more.