My Beauty Best Teacher

Google's nGram viewer lets you search over 5 million books for the instances of words. Imagine it as a search engine into the uses of words since 1800.

To better understand it, view the Tedx Boston talk "A Picture is Worth 500 Billion Words" by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel.



It is quite interesting and still a big imperfect as the uses of words change so dramatically. You can see that in this search (shown in the chart below) I did for the words school, teacher, and principal. Do we now call principals administrators instead? If we do, then administrator is used in many professions and the results won't just show schools.

Comparing Teacher, Principal, and School and the use of these words in books.

I also find it fascinating in the chart belowwhere I searched for educational technology, project based learning, differentiated instruction, classroom management, class size.

Here we can see that as we talked about class size in the 1930's we talked about classroom management. In the 1970's and 80's educational technology and class size were common discussions and now we are beginning to talk more about classroom management than educational technology as we talk about class size.

Differentiated instruction and project based learning are barely a blip. We just aren't talking about this. (Sad.)


Finally, I've been curious about the use of the terms PLN, PLE, PLC - note this is only going through books through the year. When you look at the chart, you think that PLC has been winning out until you look at the types of mentions more closely.

The fact is that PLC are programmable logic controllers and their use has blossomed. Be very careful and look to drill down and understand the meaning of terms.


If you take that chart at face value you will make a WRONG analysis. Instead you have to type the terms themselves. Note that we can only search through 2008 or this number may be different. However, if we look at this, we see that personal learning environment is used more widely with personal learning community and personal learning network not even making a blip.

So, you can't take a search at face value.




We are only at the beginning of our analysis. I would like to know, for example, why William Shakespeare was so incredibly popular between 1940 and 1950.

And when we add William Faulkner why is one favored over the other at different times.


This is a new albeit imperfect literacy but a powerful tool that is now an infant born before your eyes. All types of questions will emerge such as:

• Can we include all ebooks?
• Can we opt in new books so they are automatically included in the results?
• Can you aggregate and compare blogs, news media, and books?
• Can we drill down and include only one genre?
• Could we just use this for research in a certain field, for example?
• Could we aggregate collections?

Researchers, students, teachers, and anyone curious can find all sorts of uses for this incredible new tool. It may challenge your thinking but we are just seeing the beginning of digitization. What happens when paintings are digitized and we can examine trends in the use of color or trends in the use of certain types of materials in art? Topics or themes across art?

The thoughts are limitless but this is a tool I've introduced to my students today. They started by looking up their names and various spellings of their names.

There is a rumor going around that some teachers are able to use create quizzes in Google documents. This is one way they keep their classrooms paperless. I liked the idea, but was wary about having to grade them all.  I've seen so many online tools that will automatically grade student work, and I'm sure you can understand if I want to make things as easy as possible on myself!

But when I saw an advertisement for Flubaroo, a grading tool for Google documents, I was intrigued. I went over the Flubaroo website to check it out, and I liked what I saw.

Source

Those of you that use (or are thinking of using) Google documents in your classroom will love Flubaroo!

The creator of Flubaroo made a pretty explanatory 3-minute video that I think can explain his product much better than I ever could. So, for your viewing pleasure:



 Seems pretty simple! I love how it highlights the students who were struggling with the concept, and also how teachers can generate reports with the simple click of a button.

(By the way, if you're having trouble figuring out how to create a quiz through Google docs, watch this 10 minute video for some help!)

Do you have kids that are extremely visual? Do they have a hard time conducting regular Google searches because of the sheer number of words on the page?

While browsing my list of phenomenal educational Twitter users and trying to keep up with their valuable words, I came across a tweet from @ShellTerrell that talked about Search Cube. When I clicked on the link, it was easy to see that Search Cube is unlike any Internet search engine I have ever seen before in my life!

When you go to Search Cube and click on the "About" page, you realize that Search Cube is exactly how it sounds. You type in a search term and Search Cube creates a 3D cube out of 96 of the search results. Each face of the cube contains 16 small squares made up of an important picture from the search result's website.

Users can press the arrow keys and use their mouse to roll over the cube and view all 96 search results. Search Cube realizes that this is a pretty novel idea on search results, so it doesn't mind giving you a quick "how-to" lesson (click on the picture to enlarge it):


When I typed "education" into the search bar, this is the cube I received:



Pretty cool. People who are visual but don't need to run a search for "images" would benefit most from Search Cube. Another plus, it's powered by Google, so I feel pretty good about the results I'm getting.
 

At the beginning of the year, I like to send home a "parent inventory." The kids think it's hilarious that their parent has homework, and I can glean some useful information from just this one sheet of questions!

Source

If you're teaching an elementary class, of course, you can just send this with your parent packet. If you're teaching secondary, it might be best to attach this to the back of your syllabus and insert a signature line indicating the parent/guardian has read and understands the expectations of [teacher's name] room. I find that keeping a paper like that on file all year long is really helpful in the event that a parent insists he/she didn't know that his/her child has to do [x] in my class. (I hate to think negatively, but it's best to "watch your back," so to speak, and document everything!)

This Google doc is an example of a parent inventory I would send on the first day/week of school.

Although I find all the answers helpful, there are two answers in particular that I look forward to reading.

The first is the parent's signature. It's great to get a copy of the parent's signature in a relaxed and non-threatening environment, and to keep it on file all year long. Sometimes the little ones try to devise notes so they can go home with their BFF. Sometimes the older ones try to forge signatures on report cards, etc. So I love that I immediately have a copy of the parent signature on file, right from the beginning of the year.

I particularly love the last question: "In a million words or less, tell me about your child." That is the spot where I get the best answers. I have learned about students who are supposed to be wearing glasses but purposely don't bring them to class. I have learned about students who are such perfectionists that I should expect them to cry when/if the student doesn't understand a new concept the first time it's taught. I have learned about reading struggles from the past. Most of all, there is a lot of love that shines through on this question. It reminds me that most parents only want the best for their kids and will do anything to help them.

Whether you choose to get answers orally, written on paper, or via online survey, I urge you to conduct a quick inventory of your students' parents. You will learn so much!

Google Docs is increasingly becoming a powerful file management tool with many new ways of uploading. It is very important as you upload more files to use tags and folders (color coding is great) to keep things organized.

1. Folder Upload lets you upload whole folders to Google Docs.
   
2. Optical Character Recognition option for images. This means that the text in your images will become searchable but also editable. So, that old letter your school uses from 10 years a go doesn't have to be retyped. Tip: Always check OCR converted docs. Sometimes text doesn't convert properly.
   
3. Drag and Drop Upload using Chrome, Safari, and Firefox on the PC or Mac.

What Happens if I run out of Space?
Of course, Google is selling additional space for $.25 a GB should you run out of your 1GB of free storage that comes with Google Docs. This still isn't as easy as dropbox but for most purposes for my students it is helpful.

If you use Google Docs or support it, you must follow the Google Doc blog. 

Recommended Uses
Set up folders of commonly used files at school. But remember, once they are there, if you use Google Apps for domains you can turn them into templates that you share with your school. Templates are very useful and keep people from editing the original.

Teach students to keep a copy of their term paper or other important document backed up in a backup folder on Google Docs.

Google Doc Upload Step by Step Instructions

• How to Upload Files
• How to Upload Folders
• Google Docs Storage

Yeah, yeah...we all know what Google is and how it can be used in the classroom. Students and teachers alike can use it to do unlimited amounts of research. But did you know there are off-shoots of Google that are even more interesting for classroom use?

1. Google Scholar. This acts like a Google search engine, but provides more scholarly, reviewed articles over any topic. This site could be used for any subject. 
2. Google Earth. This allows students to see any part of the world with just a click. Users can zoom in and see what pictures satellites have taken of the Earth -- they can even find their own school or house! A few questionable images have been captured on Google Earth, but I understand it's fairly rare, so it's not really something I would worry about. Geography teachers could use this to get an up-close and personal view of places they're studying in class and literature teachers could use this to show real-life settings in books. 
3. Google Body. Check out the human body in a digital form. This one's for you, science teachers. I think it's the coolest thing ever. It shows all kinds of intricate details of the workings of the human body. Check it out: