Technology Blog

Google Apps

Recently Google came to Saline and filmed us for a “commercial” of sorts to promote Google Apps in Education, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7VPie-Yd0U

We had a lot of fun doing it and are really excited to see the new things that Google will be rolling out in the fall: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-google-applications-coming-for.html

It looks like Google is going to extend their product line even more, we’re very excited…especially for picasa.

Game Changer

Three days ago Apple released the iPad and with it brings a new era in computing. This device is going to change the way we do the things we do everyday, here’s an excellent graphic describing the changes:

As you can see, it’s going to actually alter our experience and bring content deliver and interaction closer than ever before. Check out all the guided tour videos Apple has posted on their site. I’m looking forward to all the opportunities it will bring in education.

Google Apps Marketplace

This week Google rolled out their Google Apps Marketplace. This is an exciting feature that is going to really move Google Apps into that all-in-one flexible solution. Here’s an except from the site:

“The Google Apps Marketplace offers products and services designed for Google users, including installable apps that integrate directly with Google Apps. Installable apps are easy to use because they include single sign-on, Google’s universal navigation, and some even include features that integrate with your domain’s data.”

I think we’re at the beginning of something game changing, Google has now given third party vendor a way to build addons for their flagship suite. Personally, I think the Manymoon: Free Social Productivity, Project Management & Task Management looks extremely useful.

Girls and Math

My daughter said to me today, “I’m not good at math because I’m a girl”. I was shocked. I explained to her that she can be good at math, even great, with hard work. I then explained that her grandma was an accountant and I hoped that she was good at math since she just finished doing my taxes. I’m not sure where she got the idea but I hope I was able to convince her that idea simply wasn’t true. We even found a couple excellent resources for her to use, here’s the links: A Maths dictionary for kids and mathatube. We also use TuxMath at home and at school.

Until next time,
Ken

We Presented at Google today

Today in downtown Ann Arbor at Google, Scot Graden, Heather Kellstrom and I presented the Saline Area Schools Google Story to many educators from around the state, here’s a link to the presentation. It went really well. It was good to meet a people from different districts and catch up with acquaintances from local districts.Google even paid for breakfast and lunch.

Until next time,
Ken

Google Apps Case Study: Saline Area Schools

We’re very excited that Google has taken the time to do a case study on our use of Google Apps, you can read more information here.

Amazon’s EC2

There’s some pretty impressive stuff going on with Amazon. They now have this full cloud computing service called EC2. It’s pretty amazing, it’s like leasing a server farm with redundancy and scalability at your fingertips. You can even reboot your server instance from the web interface. The future of computing has arrived and it’s being delivered by Amazon.

Internet Safety and Security

I recently attended cyber security event at SHS. It was an excellent discussion on staying safe on the Internet at work and at home. Here’s a link to their website which has a plethora of useful information on how to stay safe and how to teach our children to stay safe online.

Google Wave

Google will soon be releasing it’s new Wave technology and many of us will be wondering: what is it?

Basically, it’s a realtime collaboration protocol that combines pictures, video and any other type of media in stream that are shared peer to peer and the great thing is it can be used on any device your phone, desktop, netbook, etc.

• Right now I cannot send text directly to your instant message account (unless you’re using an XMPP-based client), I have to send the message to your IM server which relays the message to you.
• I cannot send audio directly to your phone, the phone company has to route it there.
• I cannot share a picture directly with your Facebook account, I have to sent it to Facebook first to be carried on to you.
• I can’t send a file directly to you, I have to put it on a share or email it to you

With Google wave I can send all these things to you right away and Wave puts it in a conversation which becomes a real time stream to all the things you’re sharing. Here’s more info on the actual protocol and the pieces to make it all work.

Until next time,
Ken

Best new features of 10.6 Snow Leopard

Apple released their newest OS for Mac yesterday but it may surprise some people but may the features I was waiting for the most are not in the 64-bit processing or the new Expose features but in the Universal Access Features. Here’s an additional link with more information. This is very exciting for Saline to help assist our special needs students and allow them the best overall experience. I’ve been told by Apple representatives that Apple spends millions on research in Accessibility and so far it looks very promising.

Until next time,

Ken