Google's Tour Creator

I'm a little late to the party but recently Google just announced their new Tour Creator for creating virtual field trips.  This is done right from the browser and interacts w/ Google Maps while users select points anywhere in the world and get a 360 panoramic view.  Best of all, u can annotate over these images or upload your own.  Once a tour is created it can then be viewed using any 3D viewer or Google's VR Cardboard.

Below is a detailed demo...



I highly recommend checking out Google's Tour Creator by clicking here!!!

Interland

Interland is the new online game from Google regarding their "Be Internet Awesome" campaign.  This is an innovative new way for students/kids to learn about Cyber Safety and Digital Citizenship.  The "Be Internet Awesome" initiative helps students explore the online world focusing on areas such as: share w/ care, don't fall for fake, secure your secrets, and it's cool to be kind.

Interland is the learning tool that uses Game Based Learning to teach these elements through an interactive 3D virtual world.  Interland has 4 different games for students to master and even an online curriculum for parents/educators to use.

For more detailed information click here.

I highly recommend checking out Interland by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo...

Expeditions Pioneer Program

Expeditions Pioneer Program is an innovative virtual field trip program from Google that I found about from Larry Ferlazzo's excellent blog.  The way this works is a teacher/school signs up and then teams from around the world will come visit them using expedition kits.  These kits are the 3D cardboard glasses from Google.  Right now, they are visiting schools in the US, UK, Australia, and Brazil.

Expeditions are guided virtual reality tours/field trips that student's couldn't normally visit.  The 3D cardboard glasses turns it into a 3D experience for students and is a g
reat way to use mobile devices in the classroom.

I highly recommend checking out Expeditions by clicking here!!!

Google Connected Classrooms

Google Connected Classrooms is a new learning adventure by Google that allows educators to take students on "virtual field trips" using Google Hangouts inside of Google+.  These field trips can take students to museums, zoos, memorials and more.  Also, there is a nice calendar that shows which field trips are coming up, and all field trips are archived for viewing at any time.

Thanks to David Andrade's great blog for the tip!!!

I highly recommend checking out Google Connected Classrooms by clicking here!!!

Below is a brief demo...

Google Course Builder

Google Course Builder has been causing quite the buzz on the internet today (besides the iPhone 5).  This is a nice free tool for designing educational courses, tools, materials, videos, etc.  It pretty much can be for anything centered around education.  While this is a free a tool it does require some knowledge of HTML and Javascript.

For more information on Google Course Builder click here.

Google Cloud Print

Google Cloud Print is a new (beta) service from Google that allows a user to print from any device to a printer (cloud ready) w/out cables.  Basically, it works by sending the file to the printer over the web.  This makes it very convenient for teachers to print thing from work to home or vice versa.

I highly recommend checking out Google Cloud Print by clicking here!!

For a more detailed review be sure to check out David Andrade's award nominated blog.

Google Drive

Google Drive is the latest web application from Google that allows users to store 5 GB of files online for free.  Also, it allows users to share and collaborate w/ others on these files as well and integrates w/ Google Doc's as well.  For a price users can increase their Google Drive storage space too.

I recommend checking out Google Drive by clicking here!!

What do you love?

What do you love, is a great way to search by Google that I just found out about from ADE specialist, Sue Gorman.  This is a great way to search by google that indexes terms by (are you ready for this?): maps, videos, events, blogs, books, languages (57 translations), images, emails, trends, and more (phew).

I recommend giving What do you love? a try by clicking here!!!

Google in Education

Google has revamped their Education site and I feel that it is worth mention.  Not only is this a great site for the awesome Google Apps suite but for many other resources as well.  Teachers can find resources, lesson plans, videos etc.  Information on Google Chromebooks can be found and how they are being used in the classroom.  Students can find out about the latest contest and events and much much more.

I highly recommend checking out Google in Education by clicking here!!!

Google+

Google+ has garnered a lot of buzz as of late. It's the hottest thing, eerrr ummm, well, since Google Wave (I have a feeling this will stick around longer). To sum up Google+ in a brief sentence is that this is a social network that may rival Facebook.

"The social network is a collection of different social products. These features include Stream (a newsfeed), Sparks (a recommendation engine), Hangouts (a video chat service), Huddle (a group texting service), Circles (a friend management service) and Photos (Ben Parr - Complete Guide to Google+).

Keep in mind there is a bit of a learning curve as w/ anything new...
Lets take a quick look at the main features of Google+:

1. Circles - The closest thing this resembles is Friends in Facebook or followers on Twitter but w/ the ability of who can see what. You the user control which people go in which circle and who can and can't see your posts or even share your posts for that matter. This is a nice feature for those that wanted more control over their posts then simply putting them in public or private on Facebook. Again there are different things to learn such as streaming (aka posting) or "liking" a post w/ a "+1".
   
2. Sparks - Is a recommendation engine (think Bing) built right into Google+ that allows users to "pin" into their profile's sidebar or share right into their circles.
3. Hangouts - Probably, one of the coolest features of Google+ is "hangouts" or their 10 way video chat feature. Basically, this is creating a room for people to chat via video. This has a nice visual user interface and integrates w/ YouTube as well for sharing. There is also a group text feature which is handy. The goal for Hangouts is to be much more inviting then the standard one on one video chat (I think they may have found a winner here!!).

There is much more to be found on Google+ but this gives a basic start. I must say I like the feature where you have to accept photos being tagged of you before they go "live". Now I don't have to beg my friends to not post a picture of me, I can just refuse them tagging me.

I highly highly recommend to check out this Complete Guide to Google+ by clicking here for a much more detailed walk through.

Join Google+ by clicking here and if you need an invite send me an email and I'll do my best to get you one.

Swiffy

Thanks to the amazing blog iLearn technology by Kelley Tenkley, I was able to find out about Google Lab's, Swiffy. Swiffy is a great way to turn SWF (flash) files into html5. This is ideal when dealing w/ those stubborn video files that you can usual download from a free video site/app.

For example, I used to use Alice Storytelling quite a bit w/ 7-8th graders for digital storytelling. The final product would be an SWF file, which would be a pain to convert. Now w/ Google's Swiffy any flash file can be converted for free.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, think of all those mobile device users of Apple's iPad/iPod, they can now have all their flash content played right through Google, very nice!!!

Give Swiffy a try by clicking here!!

Art Project

Art Project is a wonderful venture by Google that allows people to get immersed in art by traveling through museum virtually. This is an excellent site for students of art as they can learn, explore, comment, and create their own virtual art gallery.

Give Google Art Project a try by clicking here!!



For a much more detailed review check out Kelly Tenley's wonderful blog.

Demo Slam

Demo Slam is a new site from Google that I just learned about on Twitter from the amazing education consultant, Angela Maiers. DS is a fun site that lets users (when out of preseason mode) upload videos to Google and then have users vote on it to choose their favorite one.

Hopefully, some useful educational tech videos will be making their way on here soon.



Check out the interesting Demo Slam by clicking here!!!

Gaggle

Gaggle the safe online learning suite just got better w/ the ability to now filter YouTube video. I posted a while back about Gaggle how it was a great solution to filter email, blogging, and message hosting as well as filtering Google Apps.

I implemented Gaggle in my old district and felt that it was affordable solution for districts. Now w/ the ability to filter You Tube, I really think this is a must-see option for school districts.

Click here for more info on Gaggle!!!

Google Search Stories

Google Search Stories is a site I just read about on Kelley Tenkley's award winning blog, iLearn Technology. This is an excellent site for digital storytelling. All a user has to do is choose a video based on your search terms, add some music, then click create.

Below is their sample video...



Give Search Stories a try by clicking here.

Google Swirl

Google Swirl is a site I just found out about from one of my favorite blogs, Free Technology 4 Teachers. This is a new way (developed in Google Labs ;-) to search for images.

What I like so much about it is that after you type in a term, it gives you a list of thumbnails on top of stacks. It vaguely reminded me of how Time Machine looks when you are restoring a backup on a Mac. Once a thumbnail is clicked the real fun begins as a "wonder wheel" opens up (think Richard Pryor in the Toy). However, the image can be clicked even further to show how everything is linked together in a nice display of wheels.



Give Google Swirl a try by clicking here.

Bingle

Bingle is a mash-up of Bing and Google. This is very handy search engine to use if you can't decide which of the two "power houses" to use.




It's very easy to use and easily displays both search result pages on the same page. Give Bingle a try by clicking here.

Goofram

Goofram is a new mash-up that combines Google and Wolfram Alpha to create one unique search engine.

After giving it a try I must say that it is rather useful. Of course Wolfram will take a bit longer to search then google and a lot times you won't get results, but that is because of Wolgram Alpha's unique "calculation" search engine.

Below is an example on searching the term, bandwidth.



Give Goofram a try by clicking here.

Google OS

Today word has gotten out that Google is going to be developing an operating system that will be open source and similar to their browser Chrome. This mainly will target lower end costing PC's that run Linux, such as netbooks. However, this does pose an interesting question on how it will measure up to Windows in the long run.

Do I think Windows users have anything to worry about? Well not right now, but Google is known for doing some innovative things and this could be a developers dream come true.

For more info click here.

Google Squared

Google Squared is the latest project under "Google Labs". This is a new way to search designed to give you results in a spreadsheet type layout.

I think where Google Squared has the most value is for creating your own. To do that you just click on their link and start from scratch filling in your rows and columns.



Also, you can use it as a typical search engine and just type in what you are looking for. However, since this is relatively new I didn't get results for a lot of quarries, such as 21st century technology.

Below is a search result from the term, web 2.0.



Give Google Squared a try by clicking here.