Google Ngram Viewer & Google Trends – Tech Tip Tuesday

Two for the price of one this week. They’re a bit same same but different.

Google Ngram Viewer

Google have digitised over 20 million books and made them searchable by word frequency from 1600 all the way up to 2008.

For example, here’s a little graph I found interesting.

To see a few of the different ways you can use Ngram Viewer check the video below.

Word searches are great for books but what if you’re looking for something a little more contemporary, a little more now.

Google Trends

Google trends is similar to google Ngram Viewer but instead of searching books you’re searching search terms.

For instance, I wonder if cats or dogs gets googled more often? Let’s go to google trends and find out.

You can also see how search terms change over time. For instance, ice-cream and soup are seasonal search terms.

Two great ways to visualise all of humankind’s interests. How could your students use these great tools? I’d love to know what you think in the comments.