Category Archives: google

google, news

An open source rival to Google?

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Today sees the launch of Wikia Search.

An open source rival to Google?

Wikia is a new search engine and unlike the closed Google system, the results are “created” by a community of users.

Wikia’s search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.

As Wikia comes from Jimmy Wales (one of the names behind Wikipedia) you will have an understanding of the philosophy behind this new search engine.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

google

Google wants its own online knowledge project

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Anyone whoever searches using Google will know that Wikipedia more often then not appears in the search results.

It’s interested to read (from the BBC) that:

Google has kicked off a project to create an authoritative store of information about any and every topic.

The search giant has already started inviting people to write about the subject on which they are known to be an expert.

Google said it would not act as editor for the project but will provide the tools and infrastructure for the pages.

Many experts see the initiative as an attack on the widely used Wikipedia communal encyclopaedia.

It will be interesting to see how this will work out. I also wonder what will be the impact of such a project on the search results in Google, will Wikipedia be pushed out, in other words will the Google algorithim be changed to favour Google’s site over Wikipedia.

From a learning perspective, it certainly means that there will be another site which students can use, but whether it will be as good or as bad as Wikipedia (depending on which subject you look at) it can only be a good thing that there is going to be more (good) information available freely to learners to support their learning.

blog, blogging, google, twitter

Google buys out Jaiku

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Those of you who follow me online (or just plain bump into me online) or have read this
blog before will know that I am a fan of micro-blogging and specifically Jaiku.

So I read with interest today that Google has bought out Jaiku.

Exciting news: Google has bought Jaiku today. What does that mean? First and foremost, we’re of course continuing to support our existing users. So fear not: your Jaiku phone, the Web site, IM, SMS, and API will continue to work normally.

Interesting that Google went for Jaiku and not Twitter. Twitter has certainly had a lot more press than Jaiku, maybe it was a price thing, maybe it wasn’t.

What is also interesting is that Google already own a similar service, Dodgeball!

I do feel that micro-blogging has real educational potential, if not for learning, certainly for administration or even marketing.

Alas one of the side effects of this purchase is that…

That said, new user sign-ups have been limited for the time being.

But…

Existing users will still be able to invite their friends 

So if you know me and have been thinking about joining Jaiku, fear not, want an invite let me know.

google

Dealing with e-mail

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An excellent presentation from Merlin Mann on how to deal with e-mail and have an inbox with zero e-mail in it!

One of the key messages, is don’t check your e-mail, deal with your e-mail.

  • Delete or Archive
  • Delegate
  • Respond
  • Defer
  • Do

Well worth a watch especially if you have more than fifty unread e-mail in your inbox.

google, presentation, web 2.0

Presentation, not Presently

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Following my post about Presently, the official Google Blog has announced that they are releasing presentation software and are going to call it Presentation.

In April we announced that we were working to bring presentations to Google Docs. (Astute readers may recall learning about this even earlier, which caused a bit of excitement around here.) And today we’re unveiling the new Google Docs presentations feature and invite you to try it at documents.google.com. Maybe more than any other type of document, presentations are created to be shared. But assembling slide decks by emailing them around is as frustrating as it is time-consuming. The new presentations feature of Google Docs helps you to easily organize, share, present, and collaborate on presentations, using only a web browser.

This will provide a real solution to delivering online presentations and also enable learners to access PowerPoint presentations via the web (say delivered from a VLE). Not every learner will have Microsoft Office installed and though PowerPoint Viewer is an option for some, it is not an option for all.

Regardless of whether you think PowerPoint is not an useful e-learning tool (death by PowerPoint anyone) or is, it is used on a regular basis by a lot of practitioners across the world.

I think despite the dominance of Microsoft Office there is room for a web based presentation application and I am hoping that Presentation will fit the bill.

Thanks Seb

google, presentation, web 2.0

Are you Presently?

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Google Docs and Spreadsheets are proving very popular in the e-learning community, though one obvious application is “missing”, and that is presentation software (a PowerPoint replacement).

Mashable is reporting that Google is about to launch their web based presentation software, Presently.

Google’s PowerPoint killer looks to be on the horizon. Called Presently, the presentation-creation tool will offer a web-based solution for users.

This will provide a real solution to delivering online presentations and also enable learners to access PowerPoint presentations via the web (say delivered from a VLE). Not every learner will have Microsoft Office installed and though PowerPoint Viewer is an option for some, it is not an option for all.

Regardless of whether you think PowerPoint is not an useful e-learning tool (death by PowerPoint anyone) or is, it is used on a regular basis by a lot of practitioners across the world.

I think despite the dominance of Microsoft Office there is room for a web based presentation application and I am hoping that Presently will fit the bill.

altc2007, google, vle

Browser tools in support of formal learning

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Arrived slightly late (had been talking about the educational possibilities of Jaiku with a fellow delegate). I missed the introduction of the session, it is now the hands on part (which I have now finished(ish)).

I do quite like Google Personalised Home Page and there are other options such as Netvibes which I know some people like.

Google Personalised Home Page

I would ask why VLEs such as Moodle don’t have the flexibility and functionality that you find in iGoogle.  It’s also a pity that there isn’t a standard for widgets (or gadgets) that allow them to work on iGoogle, Dashboard, Vista sidebar, etc…