Why bother with technology in education? The students of this century are often referred to as "digital natives". They will have used some "tech gadgets" before they can speak. They will be familiar with point-and-click and touch screen interfaces before they can feed themselves. By the time they are of school-going age, they will have viewed more media on the Internet than from books. By the time they are in secondary school, they could have as many friends online as they do in real life. The real question is no longer: 'Should we incorporate new technology into learning?' Rather we have to ask ourselves: 'How much longer can we afford not to incorporate new technologies into learning?' Many educators would be familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy which was developed in the 1950s. It would come to be revised by some of his collaborators (Anderson, Krathwohl et al.) at the turn of the century. Building on this work, Andrew Churches has 'digitised' the work of Bloom and his colleagues to give us Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. It is our contention that we can no longer afford to ignore the demands of the digital taxonomy in 21st century teaching and learning.
Why Google and education?
Google is one of the most recognised brands in the world. To many people, Google is synonymous with its search engine: a tool to help you find information. Whilst the search engine is itself a powerful teaching and learning tool, Google also has many other tools that are helping already helping teachers around the world in their classrooms. Find out more at Google for Educators.
We advocate the use of Google's web applications (e.g. Google Apps, Google Sites, Google Wave, etc.) because of their tight integration . Also, Google's commitment to open source platforms and formats means you can embed Google products almost anywhere you like. It also means that if you find something better, you can always move your data to another service at any time. For more information on this, check out Data Liberation.
Our Partnership with Google
We do not represent, nor are we affiliated to Google, Inc. We see Google as our partner in education. As educators, we are constantly looking for the best solutions to address the learning needs of our students and we harness Google's products and services to meet these needs. In turn, we offer to Google feedback and suggestions that help refine their product offerings to suit the needs of real educators on the ground.
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Why Google? |