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"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

Homepage for Google for Educators. Here are links to many of the tools and applications availbable for educational use.

Google Apps Education Edition is a broad IT solution that schools can use to bring communication and collaboration tools to the entire academic community for free. Google manages all the technology details, so you can focus your time, energy and budgets on teaching your kids. Students, teachers and staff can share ideas more quickly and get things done more effectively when they have access to the same powerful communication and sharing tools. Google Apps Education Edition lets tech administrators provide email, sharable online calendars, instant messaging tools and even a dedicated website to faculty, students and staff for free. There's no hardware or software to install or maintain, since everything is delivered through a standard web browser -- anytime, from anyplace.

Why I Like Prezi In my life, I have given a *lot* of presentations. In high school, they were presentations on group projects. In university, they were presentations on research projects. At Google, they're presentations on how to use our APIs. When I first started giving presentations, I used Powerpoint, like everyone else. But I kept thinking there must be a better way, and I experimented with other options - flash interfaces, interactive Javascript apps. Then I discovered Prezi, and it has become my presentation tool of choice. Prezi is an online tool for creating presentations - but it's not just a Powerpoint clone, like the Zoho or Google offering. When you first create a Prezi, you're greeted with a blank canvas and a small toolbox. You can write text, insert images, and draw arrows. You can draw frames (visible or hidden) around bits of content, and then you can define a path from one frame to the next frame. That path is your presentation. It's like being able to draw your thoughts on a whiteboard, and then instructing a camera where to go and what to zoom into. It's a simple idea, but I love it. Here's why: It forces me to "shape" my presentation. A slide deck is always linear in form, with no obvious structure of ideas inside of it. Each of my Prezis has a structure, and each structure is different. The structure is visual, but it supports a conceptual structure. One structure might be 3 main ideas, with rows of ideas for each one. Another might be 1 main idea, with a circular branching of subideas. Having a structure helps me to have more of a point to my presentations, and to realize the core ideas of them. It makes it easy to go from brainstorming stage to presentation stage, all in the same tool. I can write a bunch of thoughts, insert some images, and easily move them around, cluster them, re-order them, etc. I can figure out the structure of my presentation by looking at what I have laid out, and seeing how they fit together. Some people do this

"At our small, fast-moving nonprofit company, everyone does a couple of jobs - and productivity apps help us manage roles that shift between coding, writing/designing and running a full-scale conference twice a year. We asked the TED staff what apps they can't live without. And beyond the classics-Instagram, Google Maps, Spotify, Uber, Seamless-we found some great apps that might help you too. (A star denotes that the app is free, or at least has a free version.)"

Jennifer Roberts, a veteran English teacher in San Diego, and a Google Certified teacher, shares how she approaches plagiarism with her students and uses the tools in Google Apps & Google Search to help curb intentional and unintentional plagiarism.

Google Apps provides filtered email to individual students in grades 2 and higher (and to classrooms of kindergarten and 1st grade students). Collaboration and other tools that are available that can be used across all subject areas.

Help your students make their own Android apps with this useful tool from Google Labs. The site comes with some good tutorials and guides with example projects. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

This is a fabulous GPS and mapping Android app that gives you everything you need to go geocaching and exploring the great outdoors. There are location, compass, photo and tracking tools which should ensure you can always find your way... until your battery runs out! Download the app at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mictale.gpsessentials http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

 Chrome Experiments of fun with html5 are meant to show off the clean and fast beauty of the new code.  Of  course Google wants you to see it in Chrome for full effect, and I would encourage that as Chrome is an easy and responsive browser, you try it out.  The Wilderness Downtown is a great example of an interactive and connected multimedia experience that mashes together Google Maps and Earth with a driving tune to blast you to your past.  Go in and enter your old address and feel the nostalgia of swooping over your childhood home with a soundtrack and pacing just for you. Students are making digital stories.  They may not be writing html5 apps, but they are accessing, or can access, many sources of media to deepen their message.  A showing of a story like what you help create with The Wilderness Downtown experiment can inspire students to consider how they can use everyday tools like Google Earth to connect with an audience. Just go to http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ and type in your address. 

Make a online 'yes/no/maybe' survey with this clever tool from Google Labs. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools

wonderful resource for training students and educators how to use google apps

Collette Cassinelli provides a very thorough look at research using Google Apps. Check out the rest of her website, as well.

A considerable collection of Google Apps in education resources delivered in an Edmodo presentation. How proficient is your faculty with integrating these tools into learning?

Great tool for distance learning if you want to have students responding as you are presenting. Also good for in class 1-1 settings. That's what it is designed for however, it becomes a question of whether or not you gain what you want by having a silent class simply responding on their screens. Google for login is required but integrates with Google apps, upload ppt. or create your own within pear deck

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