Google Alerts

Google Alerts - Creating Google Alerts was something we did during the computer scholarship workshops with high school students. Creating Google Alerts made them self aware of their web presence, whether they put it out there or another source was responsible. Parents found themselves in mentions from newspapers and church notices.

The students also created Google Alerts about their favorite topics, homework assignments, or personal interests.

As a student, Google Alerts is a great way to receive notifications about your research topic, whether you are a K-12 student, a freshman in a F2F college, a non traditional student in a graduate course, or a lifelong learner pursuing an interest of choice. So what are Google Alerts and how does one get started?

From Google Alerts FAQ:

1. What are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to your iGoogle page). We currently offer alerts with results from News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.

2. What are the different types of alerts I can sign up for?

Google Alerts currently offers 6 variations of alerts - 'News', 'Web', 'Blogs', 'Comprehensive', 'Video' and 'Groups'.
Click this link for the rest of the Google Alert FAQs

So go ahead, create a Google Alert, learn about yourself or a query of your choice.

Do you already use Google Alerts? Leave a comment and share your Google Alert story.