Google "Apps"
Google has many applications built right into the browser. If you look at the bar above the title you will see a list a commonly used Google "apps" like Mail, Drive and Calendar. But there are More (Click on More!) or go to this link http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/ to see them in a list. I have selected a few that you might find particularly useful.
Books
Books gives you access to many full text books that you can read on-line. The full text books are ones that are in the public domain (think classics) but there are previews of new books. Full text study guides and teacher resource books are available as well. You can also access and search classic magazines.
Maps
This works just like MapQuest or Yahoo maps. An interesting difference - it gives you alternative routes.
SketchUp
SketchUp is a 3-D modeling program. PCWorld magazine describes it "like drawing on the back of a napkin, aided by a powerful computer".
Translate
Type or cut and paste in some text and it is instantly translated into one of over 50 languages.
Sites
A website creator. I have not compared it to Weebly (the program I used to make this site) so let me know.
Blogger
Create a blog - for free. Easy to use but open to all so you will have to think about privacy and student use.
Scholar
Searchable index of scholarly articles and books. Lots of citations/you might have to pay for access to articles - MARVEL a better source - it's free!. Cool feature - site lists how many times a source was cited by others. Nice verification of source validity.
News
Allows you to search lots of news stories. The stories come from many news outlets - TV/Blogs/Newspapers/Web