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On Tuesday, November 18th, Roz Tedford, Lauren Pressley and I led a workshop on “Getting the Most Out of Google” at the Library 2.0 Instruction Conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill NC. The day before, Susan Smith, Roz Tedford and Lauren Pressley gave a presentation called “Teaching Them (2.0) to Fish: Web 2.0 as Subject and Method in Information Literacy Instruction.” The conference was sponsored by The North Carolina Library Association College and University Section and the Community and Junior College Libraries Section. The Friday Center was an excellent venue for this conference with ubiquitous Wi-Fi, large well-lit classrooms and plenty of coffee for those of us who hit the road very early to be there!

In our two hours time slot, Roz, Lauren and I introduced our 24 attendees (many of whom brought their own laptops in order to play along) to the wonders of Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Reader, Google Calendar and finally Google Sites. It was a fast-paced workshop with no break, but the attendees didn’t mind, they seemed far more hungry for information on Google Tools than for snacks in the lobby. Roz covered a Herculean amount of content on Google Docs and our participants were most impressed with the collaboration it offered! Lauren got everyone up to speed on managing RSS with Google Reader and I wrapped up the session with an introduction to Google Sites. Everyone who had managed a website with Dreamweaver was excited to see the ease of managing a website with Google Sites.

I often feel like Santa Claus when teaching Google Tools. It is like giving someone a present, only in this case, the gift is free! Add to that the chance to present with Roz and Lauren and it was a great experience all around!