Real world connections with Google Trends

I think all educators would agree that making real-world connections to the content we teach in the classroom enhances the experience for students.  But how can we always know what the kids are interested in?  We can listen to the kids’ small talk or try to pick up what we can from the news but sometimes that just doesn’t cut it.  I know I for one eventually just gave up and made a fool of myself not knowing what the kids were preoccupied with but it is always a better strategy to integrate their interests into the learning.

So how can technology help with that?




Enter Google Trends (trends.google.com).  Scrolling down the page shows you what the population is searching for and will even break the data down into regional interests.  


Once you find a search term to explore, clicking it reveals related search items along with news articles that may be great for prompting lessons or discussions in the classroom.

Perhaps this quick, relatively unknown resource from Google, will help you see what topics may engage your kids in learning.  As we know, sometimes engagement is half the battle!