Well, I’m sold on Chrome, Google’s new browser. I am using at home exclusively now.
At work, It has some issues with our filter which I need to figure out. It seems it gets stuck whenever there is a form on the site. Our filter doesn’t like that.
But it is so easy to use. I like the feature that displays the most commonly viewed pages on the intro screen (although i wish there was more flexibility on this).
Google released Moderator this week and we started playing with it in class today. It seems very powerful. Kind of a combination of digg.com and twitter. Short questions that rise in rankings.
This could be very useful for faculty meetings, PTA, budget votes, etc…
I’m having a hard time keeping up with google. Things are coming out so very fast.
I have started a new year of web design classes at school. This semester I am teaching three levels (Web1, Web2, Web3). We have also added a new online grading program (GradeQuick) which has taken some getting used to after using Teacherease.
I have noticed that I have some serious writers this year. A majority of my students have gotten right into blogging and they are writing a ton of entries. I have to be careful that I don’d spend all day reading them. 560 entries in the first week!
And yet, much is up in the air. I read about other teachers making their plans. But I have to wait. I know where I want to go, I just haven’t decided how to get there yet. I know that thinkquest is on the horizon, and Lulu, and probably making Google mash-ups. How and when that will fit–we shall see.
Interesting summary on the front page of the NY Times today about the growth of map tools through google. “New tools are allowing people with minimal skills to do what only professional mapmakers were able to do before.” Powerful stuff.
I had an interesting discussion in my graduate class about 1-1 computing. Applications like this make it so inevitable, yet so many put up obstacles.
Google is coming out with stuff very quickly. I know they have a lot of moeny to spend and they seem to be doing some real cool stuff. Check this out.
I think we are definately getting closer to Web 3.0. At that point I should be able to say “I want to drive along the coast for the first half of the trip, stop at a nice restaurant, and then have highway for the rest of the trip”. Google is pretty close with the newest application.
We used a google map tool today that was very easy for the kids to use. Routebuilder. Works really well. Good tool for planning bike routes or runs as well.
Here is a link to the assignment we did.
Technorati Tags: routebuilder webdesign
Reading Tim Lauer’s blog I came across this lecture by Hans Rosling about the gapminder tool. Absolutely mesmerizing way to look at data.
Click here to look at life expectancy over time. All the dots are “smart” (you can view what country they represent) and you can play with the years on the bottom. The effort to make data searchable and presentable is awesome. Will we need students who have a high level of understanding of geography, graphing, and data manipulations? Absolutely.
Google continues to come out with some cool tools. Edugadget blog by Steve Brooks has this cool google label tool. It sounds like a great way to teach tags, but would also be very useful in an elementary classroom.
I’ve been spending some time reading through Will Richardsons bloglines. I have a lot to catch up on.
Technorati Tags: edugadget WillRichardson SteveBrooks Google
