Google’s not Narcissus after all

Google is usually seen as a selfish search giant. Common public opinion is that Google will serve up whatever is going to bring the company maximum benefit. Type in “maps” and you get Google maps; “images”, Google images; “books”, Google books. I’ve always thought that Google searches were a bit biased, though I still use them to bring me the best results.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered a hidden gem in the depths of Google’s digital interior. Try searching for “dead sea scrolls”. The top five hits have nothing to do with Google. A little more looking will reveal a couple of blog mentions on Google. Finally, you’ll notice the following link: Dead Sea Scrolls – Cultural Institute. This is a simply amazing site allowing you to read through these ancient texts without the need to study Hebrew.

While this little gem is awesome in and of itself, the implications are important. Here is a Google product with a relatively low search ranking. There is good evidence to infer that the biggest search business in the world isn’t focused totally and completely on itself.

Log on and let them mold you

Two of the most powerfully formative forces for our personalities are our memories and the people with whom we surround ourselves. Until recently, that statement would have simply referred to the stuff in your head and your neighbors. For better or worse, the internet has changed that.

First of all, many of our memories have become externalized. To-Do applications, cloud services and search histories are some of the ways in which we record information so that we don’t have to worry about storing it in our most fallible human minds. Whether you see this as a miracle or tragedy, there is no doubt its all part of our modern world. What you may not have considered are the ways in which this could mold your personality.

“This is where I come from. This is who I am.”
Let’s start with how your search history influences your future searches for information. Google (and other search companies) really want to be able to help you find what you're looking for. To do that, they track you. Got a GMail account? Youtube? Drive? I do. By their own admission, Google scans all of your emails and searches for keywords and trends. They don’t care about your dirty laundry. They want to know what kinds of results to give you. In a way, that's great, since it can help you find what you want more quickly. It’ll bias you though. People who click on left-leaning news links will get more left leaning commentary. Conspiracy theorists will get more fodder for their fantasies. Essentially, when you’re signed in, you allow Google to exaggerate some of your beliefs.

“Truth are us.”
The other issue here is that we are what our tribe tells us to be. There is great documentation that the best way to change public behavior is to convince people that everyone is already doing the thing you want them to do. When you log onto your favorite social network (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Edmodo, etc...) you’ll be submerging yourself into the culture of that network. The trends that you notice there will drive some of your behaviors. Unless you actively oppose a way of thinking or an attitude, it will almost inevitably make its way into your psyche.

So consider staying offline for certain chunks of time, like each weekend. Spend that time reading or chatting with family. The memories you get from those experiences will serve to balance out a lot of what’s going to creep into your mind while logged in.

Blogger plus Drive = Awesome

One of the great things about Google is that it uses largely the same platform for all of it’s services (Drive, Sites and Blogger). That means that you can use one service to create your content and publish it using the other service. I’ve mentioned this before here, but I thought it was worth mentioning again.

This post was not written in Blogger, but in Google Drive where I compose all of my posts. When I’m finished, all I need to do is copy and paste everything into Blogger and hit publish. The big advantage here are the editing tools that Google provides for you in Drive that are missing in Blogger. Specifically, I can add tables, move text around easily, change line spacing and format my document in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Google drive also makes working with images a breeze.
If you’ve been using Blogger for a while and would really like to have more functionality, try creating your work in Google Drive and just using Blogger as a publisher. I think you’ll be really pleased.

Psychologically sound PowerPoints

PowerPoint® presentations can be a challenge to put together. It can be even more difficult teaching someone else how to do a presentation well. There are literally thousands sites offering to show you how to make beautiful and effective slides. Unfortunately, none of that advice is backed by evidence.

A new study was published in July 17th of this year that finally provides evidence based recommendations for making an excellent presentation. The goal was to look at PowerPoint design in light of good brain science. To properly conduct the study, a list of best practices was drawn up and written as negatives. Instead of saying “speak clearly”, for example the study listed “mumbled” as one way a presentation could fail. I was tempted to copy and paste their “List of rules for each principal” (Table 1) and then translate back into a list of best practices, but even with proper citation, I thought it would be too close to plagiarism for my comfort.

There really isn’t anything surprising in that list. In fact, most of us follow these without without thinking about it. Here is a quick rundown of some of the most relevant or interesting:

1) Remember that your goal is to convey a message, not to be as creative as possible. Use standard fonts, bullets and terminology. Also use colors conventionally (red indicates a warning for example).
2) Keep your audience in mind. Your words should have all the connotations the audience expects them to have.
3) Use graphs properly:

a) Graphs should be used for making comparisons.

b) Line graphs show trends.

c) Bar graphs show differences between specific values.

*If the labels are very long, a bar graph should be horizontal, not vertical.

d) Pie graphs show proportional differences.

e) Label your graphs and mark any axes clearly.

4) Keep pointless creativity out of your slides. If you’re presenting on the Olympics, don’t throw in pictures of kitties just because you think they’re cute.
5) Don’t use deep blue for fonts or to underline.
6) Keep red and blue from touching.
7) Only animate something if it helps convey your message.
8) Use decent sound and pictures. Grainy pics and low-fidelity sound is a bad idea.
9) Sudden changes in visuals or sound should only be used when you’re changing topics or to signal the end of your presentation.
10) Have an obvious end for the show.
11) Reveal bullet points one at a time.
12) Use 4 or less items per slide: (4 items in a list, 4 graphical units, etc.)
13) Your audience should be able to read every slide in under a minute.
14) Use grid lines on your tables.
15) If you’re going to use color to indicate numerical value, that’s fine. Never use hue, saturation or tone, though.
16) Be clear about what your presentation is actually about.
17) Explain complex graphics during your presentation.
18) If a slide element is important, make it prominent. If something is prominent, make sure it’s important to your presentation.
19) Center your illustrations.
20) Use warm colors to define the foreground.
21) If you’re providing geographical information (directions, locations, etc...) a map is usually necessary.

Like I said, there should be nothing shocking in this list. Still, it’s interesting to see best practices as defined by psychologists.

Effects of Internet Search on Learning Things

(Originally posted here.)


Research and Design by: Online Colleges Site

Edit Docs Offline

Originally Posted by Google: 24 Jul 2012 07:56 PM PDT
Scheduled Google Docs Update for July 31st


By the beginning of the school year, you'll be able to edit your Google docs without an internet connection. All you'll need is the latest version of Chrome and the Google Drive app from the Chrome store.


Another nice feature is the ability to preserve previous versions of documents. As you may or may not know, Google deletes any revisions older than 30 days or when there are more than 100 previous versions of the same document. By August, you'll be able to indicate that you want certain versions saved. This could be useful when curriculum mapping.

Google Power Search class, A-

Google has just launched a class on using Google search to it's full potential. Titled "Power Searching with Google", the promise is to make you a Google search guru. I have thus far gone through the first two classes and am fairly pleased with what I see. They've decided to go with the traditional classroom format of lecture-activity-repeat. In addition to the video lectures, they also provide text versions and slides containing the same information.

While Google could have done a better job with lesson delivery, the content is great. Every student body is going to be mixed and I think they've done a great job of providing beginner and more advanced search techniques in the classes. Daniel Russell, the lecturer, is clear, understandable, and easy to listen to.  Overall, I'd have to give the class an A-. I'm interested in hearing what you all think!

Summer improvements

Source: Plik:Wikinews collaboration logo.svg

Finally, summer vacation is in full swing around the country. Well, as far as I know no one is still waiting to begin break. That word "break" is a bit of a misnomer for many of us in education since summer is really a time for us to reflect on learning outcomes and use the data to alter instruction for the coming year.

A great way to work collaboratively on data interpretation is by using Google Spreadsheets. Collaboration is an important part of data interpretation since it requires us to infer what has worked and what needs to change. Software, algorithms and spreadsheet formulas are great for doing math, but they'll never give us the explanations or guidance we need improve outcomes. No, that takes human intervention. With Google Spreadsheets, you can upload any Excel document that contains assessment data. Once it's uploaded, change the privacy settings to Anyone who has the link can edit. Email that link to your colleagues and you can all start sorting through the information together. There is no need to have a Google account, they just need the link you've provided. 

If your colleagues do have a Google account, then you have an even better opportunity to work with the data- Google plus. While continuing to collaborate on the Spreadsheet, up to 10 people can video chat about the information through Hangouts. Essentially, you'll be having a virtual PLC which saves everyone time and gas money.

This summer, don't just work solo. Get together with others in your department over a Google Spreadsheet and come up with some great ideas. You'll be sure to see great results in the coming year. And, hey... you'll also have something to brag about to administrators.

DIY LMS or get one pre-made?

I've been wondering about Learning Management Systems (LMS's). How exactly is learning management different from teaching? Yes, I know all of the discussion about online content storage, assessment creation and data tracking. All of that really just begs the question, though. After all, in a typical teaching situation, there is a person who serves as a repository of information (supplemented by a textbook) who gives out assignments and keeps track of how students are performing. An LMS is really just a way to do all of this digitally. 

Since an LMS is a digital "teacher", can't we as teachers just make our own LMS? And are formal LMS's performing any better than ad-hoc systems? I've read quite a bit on both sides of the argument. So far, I'm not wowed by the pre-fab products. A well designed system can provide students with the essential items. First, they'll need review materials (videos, presentations, text) to understand an idea. Next, is a way to work with the material socially or alone so that learners understand ideas rather than memorize facts or phrases. This is typically done by assigning some sort of assignment. Finally, the system also has to have some way to assess students and share that assessment data with the students in a secure and sensible way. Usually, this is in the form of a gradebook. 

I've put these ad-hoc LMS's together using Google tools and a bit of hard work and they've performed pretty well. The biggest challenge (besides creating the actual learning material) was to decide how to organize everything so students could easily find what they wanted to quickly and easily. However, since all LMS's have a very similar design, it wasn't terribly difficult to get it to work about as well as Moodle or Blackboard. The most important thing I did was to keep the system consistent with what I did in the classroom. I think if a teacher does that, any LMS is as good as the next. 

Gmail and ESL

Update: Gmail now available in Latin American Spanish

Originally posted by Chris Yang, Product Manager, Translator Toolkit

It has taken Google a surprisingly long time to provide translation services for Latin American Spanish (LAS) emailers. As teachers, we have been working with LAS communities for years and communication between English speaking teachers and non-English speaking parents can be tricky. Now that we can translate our emails into LAS, parent-teacher communication just got easier.

Google hopes that by making Gmail available in many languages, more people will be able to share their culture and knowledge with others worldwide. Spanish is spoken by more than 300 million people in the Americas and the Caribbean. The Latin American Spanish version of Gmail is designed to be a closer match to the expectations of Spanish speakers in the Americas. You can select Latin American Spanish as your default language in Settings: