The TWAIN blog

One of my summer staff development programs this year is to show teachers different resources for finding information without relying on Google simple search. I plan to show them the Advanced Search tools in Google to help them find specific information and in the format they wish to find. I am not knocking Google at all. I love Google. But I want to show some alternatives to finding information. I thought I would share some resources with you all and have you share some with me as well.

Delicious – When people ask me to find them websites, I usually start here by using Delicious Search. What I like about Delicious is that the results aren’t just websites. They are people’s Favorite websites. They have been used and people often write notes about them.

Clusty – I like Clusty because it is a “visual” search tool. It clusters information into groups that make more sense to visual learners. These clusters actually help me because they show other keywords to help me narrow my search.

An addition to Clusy is to make Clusty clouds. These are great because it takes all the keywords associated with the search topic (all the tags associated with the topic) and creates a visual cluster you can embed on a website. So a teacher could make a visual search page on one website that is the Cluster of links on topics.

Another cool visual search tool is Search Cube which posts results in a 3-D cube. You can move the cube around and click on the visual thumbnails of the sites.

Bing – Microsoft has released a new search engine that replaces Windows Live. It works similar to Clusty by organizing information into groups. I haven’t spent much time on it but I must say that it is visually appealing.

Google Squared – This can be found in the Google Labs. The information is presented in a spreadsheet format instead of in its usual list. It pulls information from the sites it finds and puts it into data squares. So instead of searching and receiving a list of links to peruse for the information, the results post neatly into a spreadsheet. It is very similar to the next search tool which I have blogged about before:

Wolfram Alpha – Instead of listing links to sites to find information, the information itself is presented on the search engine. There is less clicking for the user. Less confusion. Information is readily available based on what is searched.

Cuil is another website that pulls information directly onto the page. Again, this idea of instant information removes the need to click through links. All the information is pulled onto the search window.

Looking for someone? Use these search tools: Pipl, Spokeo, LinkedIn, PeekYou, Wink, Spock, and ZoomInfo. Spokeo is a pay service that allows you to monitor people in your social network.

Did you know in SlideShare you can search through presentations and download them to your computer? If you need a presentation on Ancient Greece and don’t have time to make one, simply search SlideShare to find one.

Looking for some audio? Skreemr, Find Sounds, and Midomi which actually lets you sing or hum to find the music. I like the Shazam app on iTunes that lets you find music by listening to it playing.

Video search engines include: TimeTube, Blinkx, Foooooo, and Pixsy.

I know these aren’t all the search sources out there. There are MANY more. If you have some ideas to share for use in education, please post them in comments!

Anyone else see the Google Wave?

This video is a bit long (over an hour); but it does show how Google Wave works. I like the introduction of it where the speakers shares that this works in HTML 5 and not as a desktop application.

No OS required. Just a browser.

This isn’t my first post about the shift from using a hard-drive operating system to the web OS. Wave is another step in that direction by calling their new system a Product, Platform, and a Protocol.

We are moving to the personalized web in leaps.

At 6 minutes and about 15 seconds in, the speaker starts sharing how email has evolved from sending individual messages to the Wave system which is about shared conversation. At 9 minutes in, watch how a conversation can be split in structure to allow you to respond to certain parts of it. In other words, you can have threaded discussions inside each message. You have to see it!

Instant messaging changed as well at the 10:20 minute mark. As you type, the message appears. You don’t have to wait to hit enter. Messaging is INSTANT. You don’t have to spend time watching “this person is replying”. You can be crafting your response as they type it.

At 15:30, you can see how easy it is to add images to a conversation. Click and drag. No import, export, upload, download. Click and drag.

At 20:00, if you use Google blogger you can see how conversations can spill in to the wave from blog comments. Works on cell phones too!

At 35:30, collaborative editing with LIVE changes seen. This is something missing from the current Google Document tool. But with this WAVE, you can see the changes occur immediately.

At 44:20, spell check is explained to work inside context. It doesn’t isolate words, the tool checks the context of the word in the sentence.

At 49:00, there is a show of how a gadget made by a developer changed the conversation in a Wave. Since this audience is developers, the speakers show them how gadgets can improve the conversations. Interesting to see that the gadget developed in the conversation shows how to make a threaded discussion into an “e-vite” type of tool.

This part of the conversation turns into how the Wave connects to Google docs, maps, earth, etc. Using “bots”, the tools are now part of the collaborative environment. They demo using a poll generator tool that literally combines the Google Spreadsheet (Form) tool into the live conversation of the wave. At 57:30, you can see how they use an extension to connect the Wave tool with something like Twitter.

Wave is an Open Protocol so you can customize your own waves and wave tools. For developers, they can build their own extensions into Wave similar to how Firefox allows developers to add their own additional programs.

I can honestly say that this idea is very interesting. It isn’t about email, messaging, document editing, etc. This is about a one-stop shop place for collaboration. Live conversation and collaborative editing that forms in waves and shares in waves. As mentioned in the last post, this all involves less clicking! Less wait time. Less load time. Instant communication. Very cool!

I’ve been involved with web design for a few years. When I was teaching Webmastering, I taught using the guidelines of the “three-click-rule”; where information could be found in three clicks or less. The reason for this rule was based on people leaving sites if they could not find information in three clicks or less. They get bored and move on.

Currently, web design falls into the “two-click rule”. This is quite a change for designers because we lost a click. We lost placement of navigational tools. Information is literally flooding the main page of websites. Text has taken over. Main pages are full of links to information that used to be in a menu bar that allowed for multiple clicks or “drilling down”.

These days, we are a cell phone/two-click society. We use tools like RSS, FeedReaders, Google Voice, etc. to access instant information. Miniature tools like cell phones make it hard to navigate sites because of the tiny screens. To click on a particular link takes extra time. I want information at my fingertips but I want it to be found without having to zoom in on a button to click on. That takes time!

Today, I read about Wolfram-Alpha; the new search engine that structurally changes how information from a search is presented. Current and popular search engines like Google and Yahoo, require you to enter search queries where a list of links are provided to connect you to pages of information on your query. This requires the extra steps of clicking. Wolfram-Alpha presents the answers to the query without the links.

In effect, they have removed a click.

There is the Twine post about Search 3.0 and how the new search tools will be more personalized for the individual searching instead of the generic search tools used by everybody. Information readily available for my needs in less than 2 clicks in this Search 3.0 paradigm.

I see these things develop and I question the design of district websites. More and more, our district site is moving toward instant communication. You can subscribe to calendar events delivered to email, your personal calendar, or via text messaging. We are looking into an alert system to allow customizable subscriptions to specific groups: band, choir, athletics, reading, emergency, etc.; which in turn will send via text or email. One-click subscription for no-click messages delivered as soon as they are sent.

People are already receiving information via text messaging, RSS, email updates, etc. The questions now become: Are people reading the content on our websites? Are they taking the time to download and read PDFs? Why are we driving traffic to our website if it is storing old information?

In KISD, we have software on our server that tracks not only the places people go on our sites but also how much time they spend on pages. I am constantly evaluating this information to make strategic steps to improve district communication.

But with the coming age of 1-click/no-click/instant information, the district web site design is flawed. So are business designs. So are most web designs out there.

As portals, cloud-storage, and collaborative workspaces become more prevalent, the idea of a “teacher web site” becomes worthless. What are we storing online? Why are we driving traffic to documents that are old and updated (if we are lucky) once a year??

All this to say that I wonder if Web 3.0 district web design becomes much simpler. Similar to the picture posted here, a search window with the district logo could be the new KISD website. Instant information sent to the subscribers but stored invisibly on the back-end. The search provides access to the queries. Instead of listing links, we adopt the Wolfram-Alpha or the next generation of search that posts the answers on the same page.

Search that is personalized and provides answers in 1 click.

Is this the path for web design for schools and districts soon?

I read the book Angels & Demons by Dan Brown in 2001 for the first time. I found this book to be really exciting and much better than his other book, The DaVinci Code. I know that there is movie adaption of A&D coming out soon so I thought I would re-read the book that I found so good before.

Re-reading books isn’t something I do well. I sometimes just skip chapters or jump right to the end because I have read the books before. I don’t crave re-reading. I actually don’t like to re-read a book. Once I read something, I move on.

So this time with the book, I decided to merge web tools with understanding the plot line much better. I incorporated Google Earth to visit the scenes in Vatican City, Rome with the chapters I am reading. Today, I watched a video from Discovery Networks on the spiritual vision of Rome combined with surrounding regions that celebrate faith. I zoomed in to Vatican City and looked at pictures of St. Peter’s Bascilla and even saw Michaelangelo’s spiral staircase. I know what the Swiss Army’s security force uniforms look like and can understand them better in the book.

It is an interesting way to discover how to combine visual tools with a storyline that I am already familiar with. But now, I have a better understanding of the setting than I could even with a movie coming out.

Google Earth 5 is now available and ready for download. It now incorporates more of the Earth than ever before by sharing resources about our oceans and the trenches below. There are even more resources for space travel in this tool. You can view historical imagery of the shaping of our world and combine with weather data from almanacs too.

I challenge you to select a favorite story from your past – a book you have read with historical significance or something routed in a location foreign to you. Use Google Earth to connect to so many resources to help you understand the perspective of being in the area. And join in a story that puts you at the heart of the action and into the landscape of the story. It is an incredible experience!

Put this into the hands of your teachers, librarians, and students to open up the journey for them. I know many who read this blog see this as a “no duh!” experience. In fact I know this has been talked about before. But for those of you who have never experienced this tool at a personal level with literature you enjoy, it is something to really test out. Do it for yourself. Experience a favorite novel on your own to see for yourself how to enjoy it.

I know that my summer workshop for staff at my district includes a session on Google Earth. I now have a real experience to share to tie this tool to something I have experienced for myself. I challenge you to try it for yourself or to share how you have heard this resource used in your classrooms.

So tonight I visited my local bookstore to pick up a book I was wanting to read and I found a treasure!! In the computer magazines, there was a full size UK mag with “Google Special” as the header. Without even flipping through it, I decided to pony up the $16 for it and take it home.

I haven’t even made it past the Table of Contents yet because it is bursting with so many goodies on just the back cover. A giant cartoon cloud on white with the word “Cloud” in it and a new logo that simply says “g OS”. And this website – http://www.thinkgos.com as its message.

The magazine is actually Linux Pro (direct link to the Special Edition on Google Tools) and it has a boot-able CD in the front jacket that allows me to run the Google Toolset without installing the entire OS on my computer. The instructions say that this new OS is “based on Ubuntu Linux 8.04″.

So is Google releasing an operating system??

Why not?! Well, I don’t think it is an operating system like what most would consider an OS. An operating system in its purest sense is one that allows the user to interact with the operations on the computer. But for Google, their operating system is housed online! The cloud is the OS! So the device doesn’t matter.

We saw this coming when they released their own browser! Chrome was the first generation of their own operating system. They extended their resources beyond a web page to the frontier of the browser itself. Now they supply the tools needed to access resources online without the limitation of the hard drive.

And yet we keep buying machines with keyboards, mice, and monitors….

The rest of the magazine contains articles on all the great Google tools out there: Documents, Calendar, Groups, Reader, Chart, Earth, Sky, Sketchup, Picasa, Purchasing, Sites, Blogger, Maps, and some of their desktop gadgets as well. It is BURSTING with resources for Cloud computing!

I highly recommend it. I don’t think this Google-thing is going away any time soon! And while the rain clouds in Kerrville turned out to be false hopes today, the Cloud remains a possibility for many applications we use day to day.

Check out the magazine. Darn! That book I purchased is now under a pile of magazine must-reads.

*Note: After reading the info on the G-OS website, I discovered that it isn’t a Google OS nor is it created by Google. The G stands for “Good” and it is a Linux-based OS that uses Google tools. Still….it is pretty cool to think about.