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View gorgeous art every day with the Rijkswidget, from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, “the first museum in the world to offer a ‘widget’.” Not only will you be able to feast your eyes on some of the world’s most beautiful art, but you can also get background information on each work by mousing over the arrow at the bottom of each picture. The Rijkswidget widget is a free download which requires Yahoo! Widget Engine (Windows) or Dashboard (Mac OS X) to run.

The next installment on my Google quest is ‘Google Question & Answers’:

Want to know the population of Japan? What currency is used in Algeria? The birthplace of Bono? Hit us with a fact-based question or query (like “population of Japan”) by typing it into the Google search box. We’ll search the web and display the answer at the top of your search results page. We also link to our source for this information so that you can learn even more.

So if you want to know ‘who wrote the BFG’ - just ask Google:

The BFG — Author: Roald Dahl
According to http://www.directtextbook.com/prices/0141301058 - More sources »

Or, what is the currency of Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka — Currency: Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2065.html - More sources »

Or, Where was William Shakespeare born:

William Shakespeare — Place of Birth: Stratford-Upon-Avon, England
According to http://www.who2.com/williamshakespeare.html

I can see a great amount of potential for this in our schools, what do you think?  What bizarre questions have you asked and Google has answered?

Last autumn I was talking to geography departments and others about exciting features in Flickr (the online photo storage and blogging environment) and the way it could integrate with Google Maps and Google Earth to create online “virtual field trips” that would allow pupils to see geographical features and themselves add to a pool of knowledge via commenting. Further progress was stymied by the blocking of Flickr and despite trying to find a way round the blocking things looked bleak for this amazing “mashup” of Web 2.0 applications.

However, things have changed. The block on Shropshire’s access to Flickr has been lifted so we can start moving on this. Steve B has posted on his blog the instructions for the whole process, including geotagging a picture (it’s even easier if you have a GPS when you take the pic, as you can waypoint the location). Be prepared to be totally amazed by what you can do with this - as Steve describes, the “fly to” option activates Google Earth on your PC and flies you over the globe to the location of your picture.  In addition you can position the picture in Google Maps using the GMiF (Google Maps in Flickr) add-in.
I’m thinking also of other things that might be used with this; although Google Earth shows some topological relief, buildings are a different matter. But with Google Sketchup you can design your own (or existing) buildings, geotag them so they will appear in the right position in G-Earth AND they show up in 3D. There’s food for thought; designing the built environment and locating buildings to their best advantage might prove to be an interesting project.

Another function of the Google search engine is its calculator, it will perform basic mathematical operations for example ‘10 - 7 * 6′ returns:

10 - (7 * 6) = -32

As you can see it automaticaly puts the brackets in the correct place and returns the answer.
It will also return numerical answers to questions, for example ‘days in a year’ returns:

1 year = 365.242199 days

It can also carry out currency conversions, for example ‘US$10 in £’ returns:

US$ 10 = 5.49450549 UK£

Google’s calculator tries to understand the problem you are attempting to solve without requiring you to use special syntax. However, it may be helpful to know the most direct way to pose a question to get the best results.

You can find more information about the calculator by following this link: http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/help/calculator.html

If you have any interesting ways of using the calculator leave them in the comments.

If you want to view all the images on a particular website then you can do so using the ’site:’ command within Google Images, i.e. if you wanted to see all the images on the Louvre’s website then go to Google images and type site:louvre.fr into the search box.

What uses can you think of for this in learning?

The following are items discussed in the ’show & tell’ session at the Shropshire ICT subject leaders meeting.

RP - 80 kids doing DiDA some doing Level1 some doing Level2, next year they will all do Level2. They think it is hard to get a ‘C’ on Level1. LM is doing the opposite moving more down to L1 as he doesn’t want to risk students failing.

CW - CD of Edexcels DiDA briefings, posters and student books for students starting DiDA next year are now available for free.

PG - has just started the computer club for girls

BG - Using MP3 recorders and mobile phones, pupils using camera phones and then using bluetooth to send their images to the pcs.

CW - Found it difficult to get primary sources, so her students are now using their mobile phones to gather this information.

CC - mind, body and soul - PSHE website, they are now getting their Year 9’s to develop their own site for the Year 7’s.

AT - putting bluetooth dongle onto pcs allowing mobile bluetooth. Research for the animation for the national certificate, anim8or - free 3D animation. Avoid going on local.live.com - too addictive.

SW - AirLiner wireless bluetooth slate, works with SMART software. RP has got one and thinks it is very good.

FS - virtualdub - free open source video editing software. He gave his students the challenge to learn how to use Revelation Natural Art and produce their own guide for it.

LN - website for the applied GCSE: www.clc3bristol.org.uk/ict/home.html

JH - cool timer - used to set times for elements of lessons, supports pace.

JB - No limits rollercoaster software used with year 8’s, started off with Control. JB got hung up on the assessment of it, how do I level it? JB showed them 4 things and sent them away to learn the rest, students were to use the blog to ask questions and the rest of the group could support them in posting answers. From the software they moved onto log flumes and then some research on the internet to find out what makes a good ride. Then moved back to look at No Limits and investigated the data the ride output. During the lessons the ‘key questions for today’ were displayed. Students developed success criteria for the work via the blog, the most common criteria was then put into a word document for them to use. Starting to develop the activity to include a modelling task. Next stage is to look at advertising and marketing the ride. The lesson powerpoints are available here, developing my design document is here.

FS - took Jude’s idea and further developed it, his lesson powerpoint is here. He also developed his own simulation model. Questions used with the students are here.

Futurelabs have just released a report on social software and learning, another good read from Futurelabs.

It is well documented that very young children respond best to ICT in context, especially through role play. In a recent course (Early Years ICT without a computer), we looked at examples of ICT that could be used in Early Years settings and how these could be used in role play. For example: 
Building site- toy drill, sander and jigsaw; radio, kettle 
Laundry – washing machine, iron, till 
Bank – till, safe, cash dispenser, webcam as security camera, calculator
Restaurant/Café – microwave, kettle, toaster, till, answer phone 
Garage – remote controlled cars/ programmable cars, tools, radio, till  Archaeological dig – metal detector, walkie-talkies 
Theatre/ concert hall – microphones, electronic instruments (piano, violin etc), till 
Shop – till (with scanner), safe, Airport – scanner, metal detector, walkie talkies 
Baby clinic – crying baby doll, digital weighing scales  

Any more ideas gratefully received!  (NB: only electronic equipment is mentioned, other equipment should be added/substituted as appropriate) 

Details of where to purchase such equipment is available from the Foundation Stage pages of the Shropshire ICT community.   

The podcasts and keynote can now be downloaded via the Conference blog.