Ten Search Tools and Tactics Teachers and Students Need to Know I often find myself in conversations with teachers and students about Internet search strategies. Often times the conversation reminds me that what's obvious to me is amazing to someone else. Last week I had that very experience as I taught a couple of teachers some search techniques that they are going to pass along to their students. As a follow-up to that experience, I've crafted the following list of search tools and tactics that every teacher and student should know. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. Wolfram Alpha is billed as a computational search engine and this is exactly what it does. Twurdy is search tool that automatically displays the readability of your search results for you. Twurdy with Pop - searches using Twurdy's most complex algorithm which includes looking up the popularity of words within the text. 10.
Learning MIT Calculus in 5 Days To access the course for free, click here. Last week marked week one of my MIT Challenge, to learn their 4-year computer science curriculum in 12 months, without taking classes. As you can watch in the video above, this week was calculus. I started the class on Monday and wrote the exam on Friday afternoon. This meant I had roughly 4.5 days to watch 30+ hours of video lectures, understand all the concepts and master the math enough to pass a 3-hour comprehensive exam. Why Bother Learning Calculus? First though, why bother learning calculus at all? I happen to think calculus is cool, and that’s not only because I’m a huge geek. For learning computer science, for example, calculus allows you to run machine learning algorithms in artificial intelligence, render 3D computer graphics and create physics engines for video games. More, learning calculus in this challenge is also a statement about the benefits of theoretical versus practical knowledge. That’s the main goal of this MIT Challenge.
www.treasuretrovegafe.com I refer to this training series as 'Treasure Trove' featuring Google for Education, focusing on authentic and valuable ways to use the Google Tools. This training is hosted at individual schools, organizations, conferences, and Google Summits & Cloud Camps' worldwide. These lessons keep the beginner in mind while providing those ready to ‘level’ up with unique uses and tips for using Google apps in the classroom, organization, for productivity or collaboration. Topics in the Treasure Trove Series....
100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School – Eternal Code [via onlinecolleges.net] With classes, homework, and projects–not to mention your social life–time is truly at a premium for you, so why not latch onto the wide world that Google has to offer? From super-effective search tricks to Google hacks specifically for education to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time. Search Tricks These search tricks can save you time when researching online for your next project or just to find out what time it is across the world, so start using these right away. Convert units. Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Google Docs Google Docs is a great replacement for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so learn how to use this product even more efficiently. Use premade templates. Gmail Use the Tasks as a to-do list.
Fun Kids Online Math Games "Sheppard offers everything from early math to pre-algebra. The lessons include interactive activities to practice concepts. Students can shoot fruit, pop balloons, and even play math man (the math version of pac man!). Fractions, place value, money, and basic operations are some of the areas that are covered. Check it out at " --Shannon Jakeman , sjakeman.blogspot.com "Online math games, like the ones that you'll find for free at Sheppard Software, provide a valuable opportunity for children to learn a great deal while they're having fun. It can be very difficult for parents to find productive and worthwhile activities for children on the Internet; however fun online math games do offer a wonderful alternative. This free section of Sheppard Software was written for children. Sheppard Software offers a couple of cute games for the youngest math students. For slightly older kids, there are a number of very popular arcade-style "popup" math games.
Klartecken för avtal om molntjänster i skolan Bild: Colourbox Datainspektionen har godkänt ett avtal mellan Simrishamns kommun och Google gällande användandet av företagets molntjänst Google apps for education (GAFE) i skolorna. Avtalet är principiellt viktigt och blir sannolikt vägledande. – Nu kan skolor känna sig trygga med att det är lagligt att använda molntjänster i verksamheten, säger Per Mosseby, chef för avdelningen för digitalisering på Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting (SKL). På grund av det osäkra rättsläget har många kommuner hittills valt att avvakta med att använda molntjänster. Det har visat sig vara ganska besvärligt för skolor att använda sig av Google apps utan att bryta mot PUL. Båda punkterna är åtgärdade i det nya avtalet. Helt fritt fram är det dock inte. – Kommunenmåste fortfarande genomföra en risk- och sårbarhetsanalys så den inte lägger in känsliga personuppgifter i systemet, till exempel sådana som faller under socialtjänstlagen, säger Per Mosseby.
Google Docs Why Google Docs? Google Apps is a tremendous platform for facilitating online collaboration in your classroom, or beyond. It is freely available on the Web and if you are familiar with other word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs, you can easily use Google Docs. The chat feature on presentations makes it possible to create a "permeable classroom" by bringing experts into a lesson to interact with students online. Here are some benefits of Google Docs: It is available from anywhere and anytime with an Internet connection. Note: Google Docs in part of Google Apps, a suite of tools that also includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Sites (for web page creation). Google Docs Tools Google Docs is comprised of five tools that all work together. Documents is an online word processor and multimedia editor. Presentation is an online slideshow tool. Create, fomat, edit, and publish a presentation online. Spreadsheet is an online spreadsheet tool.
Why Google Plus Hangouts is the Killer App: Docs Google Plus got a bunch of new features today, many of them involving Hangouts, the video chat feature. This is not the only social network with video chat in town, but Hangouts always had some stand-out features. First of all, they can be public, so anyone can see one in their stream and join in, which is a very honest interpretation of the word "social." They also support two-way chat for up to 10 people, which can be chaotic, but often in a fun way. Today's update brought Hangouts to mobile devices, and it added "On Air" mode to allow users to broadcast to the public (once On Air opens to everyone, that is). All these features sound like fun. Making Stuff Together With screensharing and a shared sketchpad, and especially with Docs, Google Plus is now a platform for making stuff together, face-to-face. Plus for the Enterprise? So, does that mean enterprise collaboration suites like Citrix or WebEx are in danger? Would you use Google Plus Hangouts for work?
Use Gmail, Docs, Google Calendar Offline With the Chrome App Last week Google launched the Offline Google Mail Chrome App. The app which is available for free in the Chrome Web Store will allow you to read and respond to messages in Gmail even if you don't have an Internet connection. When you get to a place where you do have an Internet connection your messages will be sent. Items in your Google Docs and Google Calendar accounts can also be viewed offline now. Applications for Education When I read about the new Google Mail Chrome App I immediately thought of my students who spend close to an hour on a school bus each morning and afternoon. 5 Years of YouTube Politics [INFOGRAPHIC] YouTube, which has quickly become the media site of record, has put together an infographic celebrating five years of political highs and lows. If someone important does anything wonderful, stupid or wonderfully stupid on camera — it is likely the site has the video. This is typically true of the political arena, as politicians often make gaffes while they're on the road, whether it's during bill debates or a casual conversation. YouTube and other video hosting sites provide a place where the public can find and watch hours of clips featuring elected officials. Of course, it's not all fail videos and mistakes, YouTube has also played an increasingly large role in elections and the day-to-day operations of the White House. Take a look at how YouTube and politics have grown, from President Barack Obama's weekly addresses, CNN's debates in 2007 to the 2012 presidential announcement videos.
How Google Dominates Us by James Gleick In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy Simon and Schuster, 424 pp., $26.00 I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 416 pp., $27.00 The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan University of California Press, 265 pp., $26.95 Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. by Scott Cleland with Ira Brodsky Telescope, 329 pp., $28.95 Tweets Alain de Botton, philosopher, author, and now online aphorist: The logical conclusion of our relationship to computers: expectantly to type “what is the meaning of my life” into Google. You can do this, of course. Google is where we go for answers. The business of finding facts has been an important gear in the workings of human knowledge, and the technology has just been upgraded from rubber band to nuclear reactor. Most of the time Google does not actually have the answers. “That’s true,” said Brin.