Learning & Education in the Google Cloud

Not really much to say here except for this is pretty much everything you need to know about Learning in the Google Cloud.  Take a look

Google Earth 6 Released with all new 3D street View

The latest incarnation of Google Earth has been released today including a host of new features but the biggest addition would be  3D street views.

With Google Earth 6, you can explore the streets in 3D like never before. Fly from outer space down to the streets with the new Street View and easily navigate your way around. Switch to ground-level view to see the same location in 3D.

Now you can see 3D trees in locations all over the world. We have also made it easier for you to know when historical imagery is available in the location you are viewing. Download the latest version to start exploring the new features and watch the videos below to learn more.

Your students will love playing around with this feature

Show your Students how Google Works

This tool is a bit like when you grab a glass of milk from the fridge and one of your kids asks where does milk come from?  And you then realise that we often overlook the process behind some of the most common things to discover there is actually an interesting and detailed procedure that needs explaining.

How Google works is the best explanation for students and teachers about how the webs number one tool actually works.  It uses animated diagrams and breaks each step down into a very simple information that anyone will understand and really highlights to students the amount of effort and 'nerdiness' that goes into locating your nearest take-away food store in 0.34342 seconds.

So take a look at it here with your students before you use it next time.

Put real world objects into perspective with BBC Dimensions

How big really is an excellent resource for geography and math teachers who want to put objects from around the world into perspective that students will understand.  For instance how big was the recent Gulf oil spill in comparison to the Great Barrier Reef?

The BBC Dimensions site aims to bring home the human scale of events and places in history. The D-Day landing beaches measured from London to Norfolk in the UK. How far would the Titanic stretch down your street?

Dimensions simply juxtaposes the size of historical events with your home and neighbourhood, overlaying important places, events and things on a satellite view of where you live. Certain "Dimensions" can be transformed into short walks, so you can get a physical appreciation of the distances involved.

Below is an image of the Oil Spill over part of Great Britain.  Access Dimensions here

Android for Academics

We often overlook the Google Android platform here at Edgalaxy in favour of the iPhone even though it has over 15 million users around the world.  Andrew Cullison the founder of Android for Academics shot me an email to tell me about his great list of apps he and others have specifically made for teachers and students on the Android including

Grade Book for Professors (with Google Docs Sync)

Direct Market Link

Edit your grade book directly from your phone!

• No need to sync two separate grade books! Use one primary grade that is stored in the cloud on Google Spreadsheets.
• Email a student their grades with the click of a button!
• Pin-number to protect your grade books in case your phone is lost.
• Direct Market Link – note this link only works when browsing from an Android Phone

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Attendance (with Google Docs Sync)

Direct Market Link

A simple and efficient way to take attendance with your Android device! All attendance results are saved to a Google Spreadsheet.

• No need to enter student names into phone. Just get the student names into a Google Spreadsheet and the app handles the rest.
• Direct Market Link – note this link only works when browsing from an Android Phone
  

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Grade Ticker

Direct Market Link

Simple tool to help professors and teachers make grade tallying more efficient

• Integrates with Gradebook for Professors for easy grade entry
• Direct Market Link – note this link only works when browsing from an Android Phone

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Grade Rubric

Direct Market Link

Simple tool grading tool for professors and teachers who use a grading rubric for assignments. Option to auto-generate an email with detailed grade report for student.

• Custom rubric labels.
• Choose letter rubrics and numbers rubrics
• Integrates with Gradebook for Professors for easy grade entry
• Direct Market Link – note this link only works when browsing from an Android Phone

Check it out here and be sure to let us know if you know of any other great Android Apps

Googlio's: A Google Centric solution to digital Portfolios

With such a range of applications and web tools available from Google it was only a matter of time before someone with a bit of enthusiasm and initiative packaged all of these resources into a  workable digital portfolio solution for students.

Googlio's are the brainchild of G. Alex ambrose and are the compilation of student work for creating and reflecting about concepts learnt inside and outside the classroom.  Googlio's rely heavily on Google Apps, more specifically Google Doc's and a range of web 2.0 technologies that are all available freely to educational institutions to solve a number of problems that were previously achieved from a desktop environment which meant that students could not easily share content with others.

As someone who has created digital portfolios for a number of years I found some great ideas and activities on the Googlio project site that I would definitely integrate with my students but I am still a little hesitant about students putting all of their work into cloud solutions as this creates both opportunities and problems of its own.  This may just be a mental obstacle I need to hurdle however.

Please be sure to watch the Googlio instructional video above and take a look at the great work that has been put together on the site.  I would love to hear from anyone else that has adopted the Googlio solution to digital portfolios for their ideas.

Google Sketchup 8 Available now - more student friendly than ever

My grade 5/6 kids loved converting their 2D house plans into a 3D model a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that they produced some amazing results with my very limited knowledge of Sketchup to lead them.  It is one of theose type of programs that you can just let your kids have some sandpit time and in about an hour you will have a couple of experts to share what they have learnt with the rest of the class and so on and then just keep building upon that.  Here are some lesson ideas if you need help.

We used Sketchup 7 but recently Sketchup 8 was released that take this program even further.  It has some new features including.

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  Model geo-location with Google Maps

  We’ve built Maps right into SketchUp. Adding a geo-location to your model is now an elegant, one-app process.

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  Color imagery and more accurate terrain

  The snapshot you get when you add a geo-location to your model now includes 3D terrain data that’s more accurate, and -- for the first time -- aerial imagery in color.

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  Match Photo improvements

  Our Match Photo feature lets you trace one or more photographs to build a model; it’s an incredibly powerful tool. For SketchUp 8, we’ve tweaked some things to make using Match Photo easier than ever.

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  SketchUp, meet Building Maker

  When it comes to modeling existing buildings, it’s hard to beat Google Building Maker for speed and efficiency. We’ve made it simpler to open and refine Building Maker models in SketchUp. 

Below  is a video explaining Building maker and how easy it is to use and you can download the basic version of Sketchup Pro for free here.

Google Public Data Explorer - An excellent maths resource

Just found this today and I would definitely recommend taking a look at it with your students especially if you are looking at chance and data.

Google Public Data Explorer, a part of Google Labs experiments, is a tool that helps you explore through and visualize public datasets that are made available by government and other agencies that track stats, from around the world.

There are a number of datasets available. You can check out the government debt in Europe or visualize the unemployment rate in the United States, see how the US population is growing or the variations in prices of natural gases around the world.

It offers four kinds of visualizations for most of the datasets: line chart, bar chart, map or bubble chart. You can easily switch from one chart format to the other.

You could also compare the data for specific countries for datasets that aggregate data from an entire continent. For example, in the graph, I’ve compared the broadband penetration rate in specific countries in Europe.

The charts and maps can also be embedded in your website or blog. Overall, a nice tool for students and scholars and could definitely aid in their research on a topic.