Instructify

BY MARK SAMBERG

Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I’ve seen a lot of posts in the blogosphere recently about classroom responder services (such as PollEverywhere and PollDaddy). These tools provide a lot of value in the classroom, but there are a few big things they can’t do. While they can ask a question and get an answer, they can’t facilitate a discussion about the question. A solution has arisen from the depths of Google Labs, Google Moderator.

Google Moderator allows for discussion around a single topic. Designed for meetings, this tool facilitates real-time feedback in meetings (like classrooms), or crowdsourcing the development of new ideas.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

I am a big fan of Google Docs for collaborative writing, for storing my documents in the cloud, and for sharing documents, slide shows, spreadsheets, drawings and more. Having documents available through any internet connection is really convenient for me. If you are someone who wonders what Google Docs is all about, Google has just launched a Google Docs Demo Site that allows you to create a document, spreadsheet or drawing without registering for an account (you will need a Google Account to save Google Docs long-term, though).

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BY BILL FERRIS

Everyone knows nuclear weapons are deadly. Ground Zero makes the destruction hit home, semi-literally.

This Google Maps mashup lets you see what would happen to your hometown (or another location of your choosing) if it was hit by various nuclear weapons. Pick your poison, which ranges from Fat Man and Little Boy to the Soviet Tsar Bomba, which caused the largest explosion ever. You can even look at the impact of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, proving that man is still no match for nature. (more…)

BY KEVIN HODGSON

If you watched the Super Bowl on television this year, you no doubt caught the Google commercial that told of a love story entirely through search queries. The ad, known as Parisian Love, was effective and I know I wondered — from a writing and teaching perspective — how it could be replicated. A complicated method of screencasting seemed to be the only thing I could think of, and that would be too cumbersome for most of us, including me. But Google has now made it simple to duplicate its efforts. The company launched a site called Google Search Story, which is an online digital story tool that allows users to create a shortened version of what we saw on the Parisian Love commercial.

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BY REBECCAH HAINES

This article is also posted on LEARN NC.

As educators, most of us are familiar with the dreaded School Improvement Plan (SIP). Every few years each school is required to create an extensive, detailed document that outlines its plan for constant improvement until the next document is due. In the interim, success on reaching goals is evaluated, documented, and sent off to the central office. As any teacher who’s been involved in this process can attest, creating this document can be extremely labor intensive.

My personal experience participating in our school’s last SIP committee was no different: Reams of data had to be collected and analyzed. Goals had to be pinpointed, voted upon, and revised. Success indicators had to be determined and recorded. It took our committee of eight or so teachers nearly the entire school year to prepare this document. Not only was the process labor intensive, it used a tremendous amount of paper. Drafts, revisions, and submissions to the staff required new copies each time.

Several years ago, there weren’t a lot of options for streamlining the SIP process. But the recent explosion of Web 2.0 tools, thankfully, offers schools many time-saving options. No longer does the process need to be so time consuming. By using the following collaborative tools, schools can go through the SIP process much more efficiently and collaboratively, and with much less paper. (more…)

BY GRETCHEN SCHAEFER

When it comes to students building models in class, why should they make the same old sugar cube igloo as everyone else when they can create paper replicas of the Capitol building? Creating a 3D model on the computer can be fun for aspiring architects and designers, but the fun doesn’t have to stop at the screen. Waybe is a program to bring your digital models to life using plain paper, tape, scissors, and Google.

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

Looking to harness your student’s creative energy and possible have them win a college scholarship at the same time? Google is once again staging their Doodle 4 Google competition, letting K-12 students across the country take a crack at redesigning the iconic Google logo. We’ve plugged this competition in the past, but it’s worthy of a re-mention. The theme for this year’s competition is “If I Could Do Anything, I Would …” All of the details about how to register your school and submit entries can be found here.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Your elementary students can follow Santa Claus’ flight path on Christmas Eve through the magic of Google Earth.

The jolly elves at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (that’s NORAD to you and me) have been tracking Santa using a combination of satellites, radar, Santa Cams, and fighter jets (!) for years. Now they’ve joined forces with Google to better update kids on Santa’s whereabouts as he flies around the world.

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BY BILL FERRIS

I’ve been a dedicated Firefox user for years because of its wondrous catalog of extensions. I like Google Chrome, too — from its load time to how it accesses pages, everything about it is fast, fast, fast. But I never made the full-time switch because it didn’t have all my geeky extensions.

In their ongoing bid for world domination Google has rectified this deficiency, opening up its sprawling new extensions gallery. To use them you’ll have to install the new beta version of the browser (don’t be afraid of using a beta version in this case, however — “beta” is Googlespeak for “software”).

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BY BILL FERRIS

Google, apparently fed-up with the stereotype of programmers being a bunch of pasty white dudes, is trying to open up the computer science field to women, minorities, and special-needs students with a series of scholarships. These $10,000 scholarships will go to qualifying students who intend to pursue computer science in college.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Just because Google and Microsoft hate each other doesn’t mean their software can’t work together in harmony. OffiSync lets you create, access, edit and save Google Docs from Microsoft Office.

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BY NICK YINGLING

One of my fondest memories growing up was this time when my friends and I found an old treasure map. We eventually ran afoul of a family of gangsters, but my one heavyset buddy was able to befriend the deformed son of the head gangster, Mama Fratelli. Just as the gangsters caught up with us, Chunk and his new friend, Sloth, were able to swoop in and save the day. We were, truly, a bunch of Goonies. No, wait—there I go again, confusing myself with Corey Feldman.

That image you get in your mind when you imagine treasure maps isn’t just fascinating because of the promise of riches. That classic example of some old, yellow, frayed-at-the-edges map also maybe has some crazy artwork of an agitated seabeast where there be dragons or something. You can just feel the wonder of exploration resonating from old-world cartography.

The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has been busy scanning these old maps and making them available free-of-charge in digital high-resolution images. (more…)

BY NICK YINGLING

According to the plot summary for Teen Wolf on Wikipedia, “High school student Scott Howard is seventeen years old, sick of being average and wishing he were special… Scott keeps undergoing changes and eventually undergoes a complete change and becomes a wolf… During the final basketball game, Scott refuses to “wolf out” and insists on winning the game on his own.”

Isn’t that heart-warming? The message is just be yourself!

So, what does Teen Wolf have to do with anything here? (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

Google announced yesterday their plans to roll out a new operating system, Chrome OS. They’re designing it to run on netbooks initially, desktops eventually, beginning in the latter half of 2010.

According to the Official Google Blog, “Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds.” The code will be open-source, to boot.

The question: what possibilities does this operating system hold for educators? As more and more computing happens online, does this development set the stage for schools to shrink their technology budgets by buying Chrome-packed netbooks instead of laptops or desktops? And if so, how will this run up against filters, firewalls and internet censorship that’s so common in many schools. It’s all fair game here. Let’s hear your opinion in the comments!

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Related stuff:

Download a shiny new web browser: Google Chrome

BY NICK YINGLING

Computer science and programming language can both be pretty intimidating. In fact, they can be a little forbidding if you try to jump in feet first. The thing about computers, though, is that they aren’t going anywhere, and they’re just going to keep talking their crazy language. That’s why it’s great to have a little help to chip away at that mystique.

Google Code University is a great resource that computer science students and educators can use to stay current with tools and computing technology. Everything is Creative Commons, too, so it should be easy to work it into your classroom.

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