OC Edtech

Welcome to Google for Educators At Google, we support teachers in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That's why we've assembled the information and tools you'll find on this site. Learn more about Google for Educators.

One Laptop per Child and Marvell have joined forces to create a tablet computer that delivers a a better educational experience for schoolchildren in developing countries. This partnership may go a long way toward the nonprofit's group of getting $100 computers in the hands of every child.

"Created by the Discovery Channel, and the energy that revolutionized media over twenty-five years ago, Discovery Education empowers educators to engage students and transform classrooms by providing dynamic curricular resources, comprehensive assessment services, and customized professional development plans with ongoing support that improve student achievement. Discovery Education is the #1 provider of digital services to U.S. schools reaching 1 million educators, 35,000,000 students, and is in 60,000 schools"

games to teach tolerance and understanding

Great site for resources on everything for nerdy teachers.  Cybersafety and lesson plans

Maps are one of our oldest forms of visualizing data about the world. One might say we'd be "lost" without them. flickr creative commons photo by [martin] From the early web-based Mapquest versions and later when Google Maps came onto the scene followed closely by Google Earth, online mapping and the use of maps by the general public has exploded.  Maps are now a mainstay for mobile computing and other endeavors online line that have a spatial component. The capability enabled by GPS  (Global Positioning System) allows our devices to know where we are in the world, what/who is nearby, and what information is available about places. We see many ways people use maps for personal use and are interested in knowing more about that and your ideas on how mapping tools might also be used for learning.  

ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life. ZooBurst books are completely web-based and can be experienced using nothing more than your browser outfitted with the Adobe Flash plug-in. Books can be inspected from any angle from with a 3D space, and rotating around a book is as easy as dragging and dropping your mouse. In addition, the author of a book can choose to make items "clickable," allowing you to learn more about individual characters within a story. You can choose to experience a ZooBurst book in a number of ways, including in Augmented Reality. If you have a webcam installed on your computer simply click on the 'Augmented Reality' button at the top of the screen and watch as the book appears in the palm of your hand!

For media folks like me, the cool, interactive graphical program that is Google Earth has always had a Holy Grail-inserting moving media so it plays right over the terrain, as still images will do. We've gotten a lot closer with two new features, one with mixed blessings. First, Google Earth now has a YouTube layer.

20 Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers is the title of a nice slide presentation created by Simon Ward. Ward's presentation contains some very familiar sites like Delicious and also includes some lesser-known sites. In fact, there were a few sites in the slide presentation that I don't recall ever seeing before. Take a few minutes to go through the presentation and you might find a new-to-you tool too.

Discrimination video from Jennie Oaks 6th Grade Class.  Student made.  Very good.

This is the 3 minute video that we submitted to the MacArthur judges.  It is available for public consumption on You Tube .  Connecting SciLife and Glogster to create an example of the life of a cell

"MyArtTutor is focused on teaching art using virtual classes that give you a full assortment of what a tutor has to offer. You can interact with other students, ask questions, and hear how a tutor answers other students with similar questions. You have access to the class indefinitely! The classes change and update constantly. New classmates ask new questions and there is constantly new content from MyArtTutor and on occasion, a new comment from your tutor. You just never know!"

Discovering the outdoors on the computer to get you outside. Great activities and starting points

Doing a revamped version of my Top 10 Web 2.0 for Educators. Most radical change is that I don't have an aggregator in there. Still kinda torn about that. Part of it is that time is limited, but another piece is that I'm not positive that it's as relevant as it used to be. Considering people are aggregating via their inbox, via iGoogle, via My Yahoo, within the browser and more. There's so many ways to subscribe, that I'm not positive it's worth including an aggregator in this type of fast paced presentation.

"Project Tomorrow is a national education nonprofit group based in Irvine, California. The vision of Project Tomorrow is ensure that today's students are well prepared to be tomorrow's innovators, leaders and engaged citizens of the world. We believe that by supporting the innovative uses of science, math and technology resources in our K-12 schools and communities, students will develop the critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills needed to compete and thrive in the 21st century. "

Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness. In reality, most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you're used to dice rolls and lottery drawings.