My Google-approved, high-tech, zomgilicious overhead projector

We have interactive whiteboards in our classrooms. They are relatively expensive, and a real pain in the arse if you're left-handed, especially if there's any delay in the projection. (This may not seem obvious, go ask a southpaw...)

The Amish do not have anything in particular against technology, but they do have issues with anything that separates the community. Much of modern technology does just that.

I am not opposed to high tech in the classroom, but I am opposed to tech that is no better than what it replaces, especially if it's more expensive. There are some things I can do with a blackboard that cannot be done with a whiteboard, and the interactive whiteboard, despite its flash, is more restrictive than my whiteboard when I am helping children learn how to think.

On a recent post, I wondered aloud about the use of the word "bitch"--I think it's offensive, many young folk disagree, and a brilliant young adult who happens to work for Google sent me a chat given there by Randall Munroe, the author of xkcd. The talk is fascinating, of course, but even more interesting (to me, anyway) was how Munroe illustrated his work. He used an overhead projector.

It was a fancy camera over an oh-so-cool desktop, but still, it was, in essence, an overhead projector.

I still have an overhead projector, and I still have acetate, but I have not used it, mostly because I cannot hear anything over the fan. I have a camera I use just about every day, projecting various objects on the board as the students wander in to class.

And now I have a Google-approved, high-tech, zomgilicious overhead projector--I simply aim my camera at a piece of paper, and I write. The writing gets projected onto a whiteboard where I can scribble some more. Students can scribble on their own whiteboards, or they can scribble on mine. ("Mine" gets less obvious every day in my class.)

Phenology notes for myself: first ospreys seen diving for fish on Saturday, April 9;
the cormorants are back, the loons have yet to leave.

Randall Munroe screen shot from video cited above.

I still think the word is offensive, so I deleted the original xkcd cartoon 

Sorry, Amanda, I just found your letter--it got stuck in the spam section.

Gagging on Google

Yesterday I saw a Google certified teacher emblem on an edublog. My gut stirred. I want one.

Today there's an article in our local paper, raving about a teacher who has the new credential "Google Certification," earned by "teachers who gave up part of their summer vacation...picking up tips on ways to work technology into their lessons."

Now she gets to sport the Google logo; I haven't felt this kind of jealousy since I coveted the Chuck Taylor athletic fetishware back in junior high.

And now one of my favorite bloggers Clay Burrell is singing praises for a creative use for Google Maps in a wonderful idea inspired by John Larkin. (Amazing how the more commonly creative we get, the more attributions I stumble over. Ahem. )

Perhaps all a lucky coincidence, more likely some orchestrated convergence in which all of us get to play bit parts. So today a few thoughts on Google and the classroom.

Air Force k-19B aerial camera, National Archives, 1951

Google is a wealthy corporation. A very wealthy corporation.

Google has over 12 billion American dollars in cash.

True, they have a kick-butt search engine, and lots of folks bought of piece of their action in their Dutch auction IPO a few years ago.

Still, you don't get that wealthy just on search engines alone. Now excuse me while I go get my tinfoil hat.

I love Google. I fear Google. Having a whole class of students type in information from various sites is powerful data.

Google’s not getting rich just because of a fancy pants search engine. A good chunk of their “value” comes from big investors who get the data thing.

How confused am I? I want to be a Google certified teacher. I use Google in the classroom, and not just the search engine. I get lost for hours playing with a variety of their tools.

Google knows more about me than my mother did.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

And from their terms of service (which I may have inadvertently broken when I temporarily put their Google Teacher certification logo on this post a minute ago):

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

OK, so that language makes you itch a little, but hey, everybody's doing it.

Wait, there's more--here's where I here the opening cash register in Pink Floyd's "Money":

You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

Cha-ching!

I have no idea why they use the British version of of "license" here when they use the American version elsewhere--I have enough tinfoil hat issues to distract me as it is--but this is what it says in the Google Terms of Service.

And I'm a little nutty about privacy (but not so nutty as not to enjoy all kinds of "free" services from this gentle giant).

To be fair, Google maintains you hold the copyrights for your own material, but when one of the largest media companies on the planet has already claimed it can do what it will with your material, well, what's the point?

Oh, by the way, if you use Google for anything, you've accepted their terms.

I very much want to use Google in my classroom, but I won't purposefully compromise the privacy of my students, even if they do not know what the fuss is all about.