English: The Google search homepage, viewed in Google Chrome. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Google I/O, the company’s sixth annual developer conference, got officially underway in San Francisco on Wednesday, and it was an eventful day. It took the company every minute of its epic three-hour keynote to unfurl a laundry list of announcements and updates, seemingly across every product category in its arsenal — from Android, Chrome and Search to Maps, Google+ and Hangouts — each with a fresh coat of paint. We even saw the arrival of Google’s very own subscription music service, today, which is already being touted as a potential Spotify killer.
Amidst Larry Page’s triumphant return to the stage (after addressing his much-discussed vocal issues yesterday), Google’s soaring stock price and sexy smartphone demos, it was easy to miss an important announcement concerning Google’s foray into a considerably less sexy market: Education. (And K-12 education, no less.)
Android Engineering Director Chris Yerga took the stage to introduce Google Play for Education, through which Google hopes to extend Play — its application and content marketplace for Android — into the classroom. The new store, which is scheduled to launch this fall, aims to simplify the content discovery process for schools, giving teachers and students access to the same tools that are now native to the Google Play experience.
We live in an age of interruption. Ping – you have a text message. Ping – you have a new email. Ping – you have a Facebook friend request. Ping – you have a match on your online dating app. Ping-ping-ping, all day long.
A recent Gallup poll found that more than 50 per cent of Americans who own smartphones keep their phone near them “almost all the time during waking hours”. Over 50 per cent say check their smartphone at least several times an hour and 11 per cent say they check it every few minutes. And that’s just what they’re aware of and admit to – I would not be surprised if the real frequency and intensity is much higher.
Until relatively recently in our technological history we did not have a lot of content coming to our devices. Now, we have texts, all kind of notifications and what seems like an endless stream of both personal and work emails. And it’s not just our phones. How many times have you been at your computer working on something when you get an email notification? And of those instances, how often did you stop what you’re doing to look at your email, realised that it was not that important and returned to your work – after taking a few minutes to remind yourself where you were and what your train of thought was?
At this point, it should be painfully clear to everyone that we need to be worried about the interruptions economy. What value do interruptions provide, under what conditions, and what are their costs? A little ping may seem innocuous, but there is cumulating evidence that the cost of an interruption is higher than we realise, and of course given the sheer number of interruptions, their combined effect can very quickly become substantial.
Roughly every ten years there’s a shift to a new computing paradigm. The computer hardware and process optimization of the 80’s gave way to the Microsoft-dominated software and productivity of the 90s. Google-dominated web-based information retrieval of the 00s yielded to the Apple–Android mobile duopoly and the warehouse of apps paradigm of the 10’s.
The maturity of the web, intelligent cloud computing, advances in AI and the mobility of our digital experiences are setting the stage for the next shift to more ambient computing via the Internet of Things. By 2020 the number of connected devices is expected to triple to 34 billion (with a global human population of 7.5 billion).
The official online color is: #A4C639 . 한국어: 공식 온라인 색은: #A4C639 . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Android has overtaken Apple in the world of apps. Look for the same thing to potentially happen in the near future as well. You can’t talk about tablets in education, smartphones in the classroom, or really education technology in general without mentioning Android.
Whichever platform you prefer, it’s worth always knowing what’s out there. Don’t wall yourself into an Apple-only or Android-only environment. It’s hard to switch, for sure.
But it’s worth knowing what the competition is doing.
Remember, you are probably not an Apple or Google employee. You aren’t obligated to use one operating system over another. Both of the leading OSes are so darn hard to switch out of, however, that it can seem like an insurmountable task. The mere thought of having to re-purchase all your apps for a different platform is enough to make most never even consider switching.
So if you’re an Android user or perhaps an Apple user looking to stay in the know about education apps for Android, check out this useful list and stay informed.
If you write essays in high school, college, or anywhere, you know how important putting together a bibliography can be. The bibliography is an essential part of your work. It shows the sources you’re quoting and allows you to avoid the dreaded accusation of plagiarism.
But citing sources can be mind-numbingly tedious, and it can be hard to format a citation correctly. Luckily, there are many online resources that take the guesswork out of the Works Cited page!
Here are a few online tools, and most of them free. We hope they will help you cite your sources correctly and put together your bibliography no matter how complex.
Most students believe that they can study effectively whilst simultaneously watching TV, checking Facebook and responding to every ridiculous interruption that appears on their phone.
They can’t.
We live in an age of interruption. Ping – you have a text message. Ping – you have a new email. Ping – you have a Facebook friend request. Ping – you have a match on your online dating app. Ping-ping-ping, all day long.
A recent Gallup poll found that more than 50 per cent of Americans who own smartphones keep their phone near them “almost all the time during waking hours”. Over 50 per cent say check their smartphone at least several times an hour and 11 per cent say they check it every few minutes. And that’s just what they’re aware of and admit to – I would not be surprised if the real frequency and intensity is much higher.
Until relatively recently in our technological history we did not have a lot of content coming to our devices. Now, we have texts, all kind of notifications and what seems like an endless stream of both personal and work emails. And it’s not just our phones. How many times have you been at your computer working on something when you get an email notification? And of those instances, how often did you stop what you’re doing to look at your email, realised that it was not that important and returned to your work – after taking a few minutes to remind yourself where you were and what your train of thought was?
At this point, it should be painfully clear to everyone that we need to be worried about the interruptions economy. What value do interruptions provide, under what conditions, and what are their costs? A little ping may seem innocuous, but there is cumulating evidence that the cost of an interruption is higher than we realise, and of course given the sheer number of interruptions, their combined effect can very quickly become substantial.
This excellent resource from Mark Anderson is a good jumping off point if you are just starting to use Google Chromebooks. And if you haven’t you absolutely should consider them as a potential learning tool.
A while ago I created an infographic featuring 30 apps for the paperless iPad classroom. Today I’ve created a similar type of infographic but with essential Chromebook tools and apps for the classroom.
It features 18 different tools that I have used with children in my classrooms over the years that have had an impact on different areas related to learning: creativity, engagement, learning and progress.
Within the 18 different tools and apps there are lots of different types of activities you can complete using them. From managing your classroom to assessment for learning, to surveying children to creating presentations to positive engagement involving the children in your classroom and their parents and much more. There’s a lot here to unpick.If you’d like to know learn more about the tools and apps below or are interested in how you can work with me, or want to learn more about how you can utilise Google Apps for Education, Android tablets or Chromebooks in your school to assist with learning, please get in touch.
I hope you find the tools below as useful as I have.
English: The windows phone 7 logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The second preview edition of Charles Petzold’s Creating Mobile Apps with Xamarin.Forms: Cross-platform C# programming for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone is now available for download! Below you’ll find the download link and the ebook’s full Introduction. Enjoy!
We want to give all students the opportunity to learn coding, so why not get started today with www.Touchdevelop.com and have a chance of winning $3000
Microsoft Imagine introduces the Break Into Code challenge as a beginner level challenge that will get students excited about coding even if they don’t have any previous experience. We’ve teamed up with Microsoft Research’s Touch Develop to get students of all ages started with a simple, easy to follow tutorial on coding a brick breaker game. The tutorial will get them started from a blank slate to a working game which they can then personalize and reinvent to make it their own. They can use any device with a browser and internet connection to participate.
Next comes the tricky task of making sure the app works as you expect. And this isn\’t particularly easy, at all. You don\’t need programming knowledge, but there are lots of options and settings you\’ll need to learn in order to get everything working properly as well as entering Excel code for more complex logic.
Once it\’s all done then you can use the app yourself, or share it with others. See the details below for more information
We live in an age of interruption. Ping – you have a text message. Ping – you have a new email. Ping – you have a Facebook friend request. Ping – you have a match on your online dating app. Ping-ping-ping, all day long.
We live in an age of interruption. Ping – you have a text message. Ping – you have a new email. Ping – you have a Facebook friend request. Ping – you have a match on your online dating app. Ping-ping-ping, all day long.
