Using Google’s “Special” Features Todd W. Jorns Senior Director for Educational Technology Illinois Community College Board

Search Engines 1994 – Lycos & Yahoo! 1995 – Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite 1996 – Dogpile 1997 – Ask Jeeves 1998 – Google & MSN Search

Google History Began as a research project in 1996 by grad students at Stanford. Incorporated in 1998 as a privately held company. The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of “googel” which refers to The verb “google” was added to two dictionaries in 2006 meaning “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.”

Google’s Special Features Calculator Currency Exchange Spell Checker Street Maps Travel Information Language Translation

Calculator To use Google’s built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation or math problem into the search box and hit the “Enter” key or click on the “Google Search” button.  5+2*2, then try (5+2)*2  Sqrt(81)  Half a cup in teaspoons  One mile in feet

Currency Conversion To use the built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion you would like done into the search box and hit “Enter”.  3.5 USD in Euros  Currency of Brazil in Malaysian money  5 Euros in South Korean money  2.2 USD per gallon in INR per liter

Spell Checker To use the built-in spell checker, simply enter a word into the search box and hit “Enter”.  Checks to see if you are using the most common version of the word’s spelling.  Click on “Did you mean:?” button to find the correct spelling or other versions of the spelling.  Type “define:” or “related:” before a word.  Click on “Images” at the top-left to see images.

Street Maps To use the street map feature, enter the a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state in the search box and hit “Enter”.  Google will return links from Google Maps.  Often the street address and city name will be enough information.  Map & Satellite views.  Type in your address to test out this feature.

Travel Information To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type in the airport’s three letter code followed by the word “airport” into the search box and it “Enter”.  DEN, ORD, SFO, IAH, etc. To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline followed by the flight number.  United 134, American 2234, Delta 342, etc.

Language Translation Translates English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian and other language combinations. Translates text and complete websites. To use Google’s language translation tool, go to and click on “Language Tools” to the right of the text box.

Other Useful/Cool Websites docs.google.com - online office suite. docs.google.com zoho.com – online office suite. zoho.com openoffice.org – open source suite. openoffice.org zamzar.com - free online conversions – docs, images, audio, video, etc. zamzar.com flip4u.org – financial literacy & planning. flip4u.org

Questions Todd W. Jorns (217)