Google Squared is a product of Google Labs. It displays your search results in a grid format. Each item found for your search term populates the rows and their common attributes are shown in the columns. Rather then listing the web pages, your results are organised.

In my opinion it is vital that we don’t just assume that primary school children, who have grown up with “Google” as a verb, can search internet content effectively.

In July last year Google search engineers recorded 1 trillion unique URLs that they indexed, and that was more than a year ago. The amount of information at our pupil’s fingertips is amazing. Sometimes it is too much.

I think Google Squared is a great addition to classroom searching as it provides well needed structure to those search results. It doesn’t just provide a list of sites to click on but a grid of types of information. Google Squared is limited to the types of search terms that can be “Squared” but I think the added structure is a huge benefit to the experience of finding information.

For this post I have produced a series of screenshots and will highlight some of the unique features of searching internet content in this way to help you get the most from Google Squared in the classroom.

Tom Barrett shows the way again this time extolling the virtues of Google Squared. Don't forget to check out the Slideshare Tom has embedded into this post from his blog.

The just-launched Twitter Lists feature is a new way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In actuality, though, Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. That’s because Lists aren’t just static listings of users, but rather curated Twitter () streams of the latest tweets from a specified set of users.

In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (the members of your family, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list. Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following.

From Mashable comes this quite informative how to, well worth a read if you are a regular Twitter user.

With classes, homework, and projects–not to mention your social life–time is truly at a premium for you, so why not latch onto the wide world that Google has to offer? From super-effective search tricks to Google hacks specifically for education to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time.

Today’s post features a number of Australian schools using iPods and iPod Touches in the classroom.

This post from Kerrie Smith of educationau is one of series this time highlighting some really great work of Australian teachers with iPods and iPod Touch's.

How is ICT changing what teachers can do?
Technology has done a lot but what's really impacting on teachers is how information is changing. A number of years ago I wrote a book called Redefining Literacy. It started out being a technology book but the more I researched the more I realised it wasn't technology I wanted to talk about, it was information. The nature of information has changed and, as a result, so has what it means to be literate.

This great Q&A from the New Zealand Interface mag with David Warlick has some really concise insights into how schools and teachers can approach the challenges of integrating technology and learning.

While sipping a cup of organically farmed, artisan-brewed tea, I tap on my gigabit-wireless-connected tablet, to pull up a 3D movie on the razor-thin HDTV hanging on the wall. A media server streams the film via a superspeedy USB connection to a wireless HD transmitter, which then beams it to the TV.

That actor--who was he? My augmented-reality contact lenses pick up the unique eye motion I make when I have a query, which I then enter on a virtual keyboard that appears in the space in front of me. Suddenly my field of vision is covered with a Web page showing a list of the actor's movies, along with some embedded video clips.

These technologies will come to life in the distant future, right? Future, yes. Distant, no.

Speed and content (much of it video) will be paired consistently across mobile, laptop, desktop, and home-entertainment systems. New ways of using video--including adding 3D depth or artificial visual overlays--will require more speed, storage, and computational power.

In our preview of technologies that are well on their way to reality, we look at the connective tissue of USB 3.0, 802.11ac, and 802.11ad for moving media--especially video--faster; at HTML5 for displaying video and content of all kinds consistently across all our devices; at augmented reality to see how the digital world will stretch into our physical reality by overlaying what we see with graphics and text; and at 3D TV, which will add image depth and believability to the experience of watching TV.

In February 2007 I began to introduced Google Apps Education Edition. Until July 2009 it became the Primary method of communication in school. This blog is designed to give a fair reflection on the assets and pitfalls to the use of this system in a Primary School setting.

Well, I’ve finally moved all of my classes completely over to Google this semester.  I now have a teacher website that was created using Google Sites.  Within this site, I have set up each of my classes with a Google Group for current events discussions and a Google Calendar to record homework, etc. So far, the students have embraced this change to a “paperless” classroom with great enthusiasm.  For me, however, it is still not enough.  I envision a classroom whereby the students engage in meaningful learning using technology on a daily basis.

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.