Thing #7 Cool Google Tools

I am very familiar with Google Tools and they are COOL. I do use Picasa to edit and play with my pictures; I edited the picture with my girls from Thing #6 using Picasa. Unfortunately, like many things, Picasa is blocked from my district.
Google Earth is a great tool to use in the classroom. If you are teaching your students about volcanoes for example, take them to see Arenal, an active volcano in Costa Rica.
I have used Google Docs to collaborate with others while taking classes.
For the purpose of Thing #7, I played with iGoogle for a while. iGoogle lets you customize your page layout. There are many themes and beautiful colors to add to your page. You can add or delete things that interest you from your iGoogle page. I also set up my Google Calendar; I really like the fact that you can synchronize it with other exiting calendars as Microsoft Outlook.
Finally, I created some Google Alerts. I can see how this tool can be very useful for super busy people like me. Instead of having to look for news on information I am interested on, this tool allows me to tell Google what I want to be informed about.