Google Announces Free “Power Search Strategies” Class

Want to learn how you can better utilize Google to create advanced searches that yield the results you want? Google on Wednesday announced a new free course called Power Searching With Google that aims to help users looking for advanced search options.

The program which will allow thousands of Google fans to participate was built around the “Massive Open Online Course” structure pioneered by Stanford and MIT. The search company will also use Google+ and Hangouts to answer questions in small groups that will be moderated by search experts. Google will also provide Google Groups for collaboration with other students. All additional questions will be answered by Google employees.

Here’s the official response from Google:

“Today, we’ve opened registration for Power Searching with Google, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Our course is aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search. For example, did you know that you can search for and read pages written in languages you’ve never even studied? Identify the location of a picture your friend took during his vacation a few months ago? How about finally identifying that green-covered book about gardening that you’ve been trying to track down for years? You can learn all this and more over six 50-minute classes.”

Google will begin offer the classes starting on July 10, 2012 and users will have two weeks to finish the classes at their own leisure.