Google Correlate is an interesting service that takes the concept of Google Trends and flips it. There seems to be two basic purposes of Google Correlate. The first purpose is to be able to determine patterns in the use of search terms over time. The second purpose is to compare the use of search terms according to location in the United States. One of the ways that you can discover this information is by drawing a graph over time then letting Google show you the terms that correspond to what you drew. Tekzilla has a video about this. I’ve embedded that video below.

Another way that you can use Google Correlate is by uploading your own data to analyze as search patterns over time and or location.

Applications for Education
I have to admit that at first I wasn’t sure what to make of Google Correlate. The more I experimented with it and the more I thought about it, I realized that there could be a use for it in some academic settings. One way that you could use it in a classroom is to have students draw graphs, record the search term patterns, then investigate why certain search terms were popular at a particular point on the graph.