Category Archives: Google for Education Blog

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3 ways independent schools can implement new technology without raising tuition

Editor's note:Small schools are seeing great success with Google for Education tools. We spoke with educators and administrators from smaller schools and districts across the United States to better understand how technology has helped them innovate, create more efficient processes and make a positive impact on their students. This is the first in a series of posts that explore the impact and successes of small schools. To learn more about using Google for Education tools in independent schools, visit us here.

Teachers and staff at smaller schools are experts at stretching resources and keeping close tabs on expenses. For independent schools, it’s important that tuition remains affordable. Historically, bringing new technology solutions into classrooms has presented a tough choice for these schools: buy new devices and software and raise tuition, or maintain tuition while settling for out-of-date technology that doesn’t position students well for the future. Today, schools are discovering that technology can not only be affordable, it can also help teachers and staff save time and increase productivity.

Keeping tuition affordable 

St. Jude Catholic School in Indianapolis maintained the balance between technology upgrades and affordable tuition by introducing Google Classroom and Chromebooks to their students and faculty. Google Apps for Education, a suite of productivity and collaboration tools that includes Google Classroom, is free for schools, and Chromebooks cost a fraction of what other tablets, desktops and laptops cost. “We’re a tuition-based school, so having the ability to expose our students to advanced technology, such as cloud computing, without drastically increasing tuition is a huge benefit,” says Joe Shelburn, principal at St. Jude Catholic School.
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Students at St. Jude Catholic School use Chromebooks to work together on a project
At Lake Catholic High School in Mentor, Ohio, school leaders faced a similar situation: they wanted to buy laptops for every student, but were concerned their budget wouldn’t stretch. “We didn’t have enough state funding to cover the entire cost — the purchase had to come out of the school budget, and we didn’t want to raise tuition to do it,” says Taylor Smith, the school’s technology coordinator. Chromebooks quickly became the school’s top choice for its 1:1 program, since they didn’t break the budget starting at $149 per device. Chromebooks are also easy for the school to maintain. Quite simply, they don’t have many technical issues, and any issues that arise are easy to fix. They’re also light and sturdy, making them easy for students to carry.
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Students at Lake Catholic High School work on some homework after school

Limiting time spent on paper-based tasks to spend more time on student programs 

Time is another precious resource — particularly at schools where staff members wear multiple hats. As is the case with many educators, teachers at Jackson Preparatory School in Jackson, Mississippi, regularly dedicate time outside of the classroom to grading papers and coaching sports teams. Laura Bishop, head of IT at Jackson Prep, says, “We’re always looking for ways to give our teachers more time to be involved with their families and community.” When the school switched from legacy software to Google Apps for Education, teachers no longer needed to spend hours on time-consuming tasks like printing and organizing paper assignments. “I’ve dramatically reduced the amount of time I spend in front of the paper copier this year,” says Hunter Upchurch, a Spanish instructor at Jackson Prep, noting that worksheets and quizzes can now be shared through Classroom. The saved time not only gets put back into student programs like sports and music, it helps teachers reduce their “homework”— so they have more time to spend with friends and family when they go home for the day.

Giving IT more time to focus on strategic projects 

When teachers and staff are able to shift away from the slower, paper-based processes that once ate up their time, they make room in their busy schedules to work on projects that would normally be pushed to the backburner, or on creating spectacular lessons for their students. Modern, easy to use technology like Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks can also help IT staff save time on things like computer maintenance and training, so they can focus instead on solving more strategic, challenging problems.

Switching from desktops and legacy software to Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education has allowed Joe Schultz, tech support specialist at Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Illinois, to reduce the amount of time spent fixing PCs, maintaining their old Microsoft server and troubleshooting tech issues. “I’m less busy solving technology-related problems than I was a few years ago,” Schultz says. He plans to devote the saved time to projects like improving network efficiency.

Schools like the above are adopting classroom technology that not only helps keep tuition affordable, but also allows teachers and staff to do more with their limited time. Here are 3 ways you can do the same at your school:

  1. Shop around: There are many devices on the market, so find the ones that meet your students’ unique needs. For example, tablets can work well for younger students who can’t yet type on a keyboard, while laptops may be suitable for older students who spend a lot of time on research.
  2. Automate what you can: Use online tools to eliminate admin tasks that waste time — like copying worksheets or grading paper exams 
  3. Look to the cloud: Reduce IT maintenance, training time and overall costs with easy to use and easy to manage cloud-based solutions. 
Is your school saving time and money by getting creative with technology? We’d love to hear your tips. Share your story below or on Twitter and tag us (@GoogleEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

Source: Education


3 ways independent schools can implement new technology without raising tuition

Posted by Jilli Hume, Program Manager, Google for Education Team

Editor's note: Small schools are seeing great success with Google for Education tools. We spoke with educators and administrators from smaller schools and districts across the United States to better understand how technology has helped them innovate, create more efficient processes and make a positive impact on their students. This is the first in a series of posts that explore the impact and successes of small schools. To learn more about using Google for Education tools in independent schools, visit us here.

Teachers and staff at smaller schools are experts at stretching resources and keeping close tabs on expenses. For independent schools, it’s important that tuition remains affordable. Historically, bringing new technology solutions into classrooms has presented a tough choice for these schools: buy new devices and software and raise tuition, or maintain tuition while settling for out-of-date technology that doesn’t position students well for the future. Today, schools are discovering that technology can not only be affordable, it can also help teachers and staff save time and increase productivity.

Keeping tuition affordable 


St. Jude Catholic School in Indianapolis maintained the balance between technology upgrades and affordable tuition by introducing Google Classroom and Chromebooks to their students and faculty. Google Apps for Education, a suite of productivity and collaboration tools that includes Google Classroom, is free for schools, and Chromebooks cost a fraction of what other tablets, desktops and laptops cost. “We’re a tuition-based school, so having the ability to expose our students to advanced technology, such as cloud computing, without drastically increasing tuition is a huge benefit,” says Joe Shelburn, principal at St. Jude Catholic School.
At Lake Catholic High School in Mentor, Ohio, school leaders faced a similar situation: they wanted to buy laptops for every student, but were concerned their budget wouldn’t stretch. “We didn’t have enough state funding to cover the entire cost — the purchase had to come out of the school budget, and we didn’t want to raise tuition to do it,” says Taylor Smith, the school’s technology coordinator. Chromebooks quickly became the school’s top choice for its 1:1 program, since they didn’t break the budget starting at $149 per device. Chromebooks are also easy for the school to maintain. Quite simply, they don’t have many technical issues, and any issues that arise are easy to fix. They’re also light and sturdy, making them easy for students to carry.

Limiting time spent on paper-based tasks to spend more time on student programs 

Time is another precious resource — particularly at schools where staff members wear multiple hats. As is the case with many educators, teachers at Jackson Preparatory School in Jackson, Mississippi, regularly dedicate time outside of the classroom to grading papers and coaching sports teams. Laura Bishop, head of IT at Jackson Prep, says, “We’re always looking for ways to give our teachers more time to be involved with their families and community.” When the school switched from legacy software to Google Apps for Education, teachers no longer needed to spend hours on time-consuming tasks like printing and organizing paper assignments. “I’ve dramatically reduced the amount of time I spend in front of the paper copier this year,” says Hunter Upchurch, a Spanish instructor at Jackson Prep, noting that worksheets and quizzes can now be shared through Classroom. The saved time not only gets put back into student programs like sports and music, it helps teachers reduce their “homework”— so they have more time to spend with friends and family when they go home for the day.

Giving IT more time to focus on strategic projects 

When teachers and staff are able to shift away from the slower, paper-based processes that once ate up their time, they make room in their busy schedules to work on projects that would normally be pushed to the backburner, or on creating spectacular lessons for their students. Modern, easy to use technology like Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks can also help IT staff save time on things like computer maintenance and training, so they can focus instead on solving more strategic, challenging problems.

Switching from desktops and legacy software to Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education has allowed Joe Schultz, tech support specialist at Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Illinois, to reduce the amount of time spent fixing PCs, maintaining their old Microsoft server and troubleshooting tech issues. “I’m less busy solving technology-related problems than I was a few years ago,” Schultz says. He plans to devote the saved time to projects like improving network efficiency.

Schools like the above are adopting classroom technology that not only helps keep tuition affordable, but also allows teachers and staff to do more with their limited time. Here are 3 ways you can do the same at your school:

  1. Shop around: There are many devices on the market, so find the ones that meet your students’ unique needs. For example, tablets can work well for younger students who can’t yet type on a keyboard, while laptops may be suitable for older students who spend a lot of time on research.
  2. Automate what you can: Use online tools to eliminate admin tasks that waste time — like copying worksheets or grading paper exams 
  3. Look to the cloud: Reduce IT maintenance, training time and overall costs with easy to use and easy to manage cloud-based solutions. 
Is your school saving time and money by getting creative with technology? We’d love to hear your tips. Share your story below or on Twitter and tag us (@GoogleEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

Accelerating CS Education in Local Communities: The Stats by State

Posted by Jennifer Wang, Computer Science Education Program Manager

Nationally, 9 in 10 parents want their children to learn computer science (CS) but only a quarter of principals report offering CS with programming in their schools. Ever wonder what the stats look like in your state? Today, we're excited to release new reports that take a closer look for 11 states. These reports are part of our comprehensive multi-year research study with Gallup Inc. and cover the most populous U.S. states (CA, FL, GA, IL, MI, NC, NY, OH, PA, TX, and WI). For each state, we highlight insights about CS perceptions as well as challenges to providing CS education for all students, and we show how the state compares to the national average.
New reports on CS education for the most populous states as part of our comprehensive multi-year research study with Gallup Inc.
There's no silver bullet to increasing students' access and exposure to CS, but from our research, we identified four areas that we must focus on in order to move the needle. We found:

  1. The greatest challenges to offering CS included lack of qualified teachers for the subject matter and budget for teachers. 
  2.  Other school system barriers are a focus on testing requirements and low perceived institutional support, even with high support among parents and educators found in our previous report. 
  3. CS offerings at schools are limited and often serve select students. 
  4. Perceptions of what CS involves are unclear, with many principals confusing CS as basic computer literacy.

The reports provide more detail on each state’s unique challenges. Below, we share some local initiatives tackling the four key areas identified by the research.

Empowering CS teaching
Nationally, we found the #1 barrier to offering CS classes is lack of budget to hire or train teachers. At Google, we are committed to closing this gap by empowering teachers in local communities through CS4HS, a program that has funded CS teacher professional development worldwide and in over 37 states. Support from CS4HS and the National Science Foundation enabled Marquette University in Wisconsin to provide programming to double the number of CS teachers in the state. We also partner with Code.org and local leaders to expand the number of CS teachers across the U.S. In Georgia, they partnered with CEISMC at Georgia Tech as well as the Department of Education and Governor’s office to open teacher professional learning programs to the entire state. In Riverside Unified School District, the 15th largest district in California, CS First, our free program that helps anyone—a teacher, parent or volunteer—teach kids the basics of CS, began in just a couple schools and spread to the whole district, with the city embracing the program to reach its community of predominantly minority students.
Students in Riverside Unified School District in California learning CS First.
Photo credit: Marc Lyon Galang, RUSD Office of Communications
Collaboratively building support with schools
Unfortunately, teacher preparation isn’t the only challenge school systems face in implementing CS programs. Infrastructure and varied local implementation pose difficulties for schools. We support organizations like ACCESS in California, which addresses these systemic issues in CS education at a state-wide level while ensuring equity is interwoven. TASA’s Future-Ready Superintendent Network is also doing incredible work on the ground in Texas; we recently hosted them to share and brainstorm innovative ways to transform education and bring CS to their districts. And on the city level there’s been exciting engagement coming out of the Chicago Public Schools in Illinois through awareness building events with teachers, administrators and mayoral staff, and in New York City, Mayor de Blasio’s roll out of Computer Science for All has ignited support for CS education across the city.

Reaching diverse students beyond school
While these initiatives in formal education are exciting developments, none happen overnight. In order to broaden access for all students now, it’s equally important to engage in informal education. One such initiative we supported in Michigan is Hello World, a camp for middle school girls founded by high schooler Christina Li. Christina was recognized with the White House Champion of Change in Computer Science Education award and on Nickelodeon’s The HALO Effect. Our Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) provides opportunities for diverse students like KaMar Galloway to strengthen their CS skills and prepare them for a technical career. CSSI was instrumental in KaMar’s pursuit of CS at North Carolina State University and eventually his role on our CS First team, which aims to engage 1 million students in CS, particularly those from underrepresented groups.

Broadening perceptions and stereotypes
Lastly, we need to broaden perceptions and stereotypes of CS, which our research found are discouraging for many, especially girls and minorities. Google’s CS in Media team works with writers, producers and studios to help create more accurate and varied storylines about CS and to diversify media portrayals of computer scientists. Recently, we partnered with the Miami International Film Festival on a 4-day seminar series on gender and racial gaps in film and tech to increase awareness and brainstorm solutions. Googlers in our Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania office annually provide 60 teachers and 650 students with a real-world look into CS. In Ohio, HER Ideas in Motion aims to change stereotypes by providing female tech role models and project-based learning for girls across the state. In New York, ScriptEd brings software engineers (including Googlers!) into the classroom to teach CS and connect underserved students to internships. These volunteer engineers serve as mentors to build students’ confidence and perception of the field. Both organizations received Google’s RISE Awards for their high impact outreach.

We hope that these numerous initiatives and nonprofits will continue to drive change in communities and that the research we released today will support them by identifying potential challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned for more—we’ll be continuing our research with Gallup and this summer, we’ll be releasing two new reports focusing on demographic disparities and unconscious biases in U.S. K-12 CS education.

How Dr. King, Jr. Elementary created a culture of innovation with 20% time

Posted by Susan Gonzalez, district preparation teacher, West Contra Costa Unified School District

Editor's note: Today’s guest author is Susan Gonzalez, district preparation teacher for grades 4-6 at Bayview Elementary School in San Pablo, California and Dr. King, Jr. Elementary School in Richmond, California. West Contra Costa Unified School District introduced a new program to give students time to explore passion projects, based on Google’s concept of 20% time. To learn more about this idea, read Kevin Brookhouser’s blog post about 20% time in schools.

Sixth grader Johntae Tolerson plays basketball every day during recess and dreams of becoming a professional basketball player, but that dream often feels disconnected from the work she does in the classroom. When her school, Dr. King, Jr. Elementary in Richmond, California, gave her 100 minutes a week to explore one of her passions in class, she researched the requirements for becoming a professional basketball player and the background of some professionals in the game.
Johntae dreams of being a professional basketball player
Johntae’s basketball project is just one result of our school encouraging students and teachers to build a culture of innovation. We wanted to engage and motivate students in new ways and give them the opportunity to take the lead. Many of our students see street violence on a regular basis, and a majority live in poverty. With those hardships on their mind, it can be difficult for them to stay fully present and motivated at school. We wanted to give them a sense of purpose and help them drive their own learning.

Last summer, Google and West Contra Costa Unified School District came together to help launch IDEO’s Teachers Guild, a creative collaborative for teachers to design solutions to the biggest challenges in education today. Teachers and district leaders from around the U.S. went on a design thinking journey to answer the question, “How might we create rituals and routines that establish a culture of innovation in our classrooms and schools?”
The Teachers Guild brings educators and partners together to tackle big challenges in education today
With the help of IDEO’s Teachers Guild and Google, we focused on how to answer this question. We were inspired by Charles Shryock, an educator in Maryland, who came up with the idea of a “sub hack” that would let students pursue passion projects. Days when teachers are absent tend to be filled with rote, “drill and kill” activities since substitute teachers have minimal time to prepare a lesson plan and lack context about what’s been going on in a given classroom. Charles set out to turn this otherwise unproductive time into opportunities for students to pursue their passions. Students come up with a project that sparks their interest and spend time on it when they have a substitute teacher.

The projects range from poetry to fashion design to researching family heritage. I’ve been so impressed by the creativity and personality students have put into their projects. Lashay chose to research her favorite sport, football, and wrote about why boys and girls don’t play football together. MarShawn wrote a poem describing how the emotions he expresses don’t always match how he feels on the inside.
Katie Von Husen, coordinator of educational technology, helps a student identify his essential question
Before rolling out this idea across the district, we tested the idea with one fifth and one sixth grade class, with a small change. Since it’s hard to predict when teachers will need a substitute, we used my class period, when students typically focus on keyboard and computer literacy skills, to trial passion projects. Students worked on their passion projects during two 50-minute class periods weekly for a 12-week period. I created a website as a resource for students to brainstorm their essential questions, get inspiration from their peers’ projects, locate graphic organizers for the research, including links to videos to fuel inspiration, ask questions, and communicate with me via the site. Having a workspace with computers for students to do research and setting aside dedicated time each week for passion projects were instrumental to our success.

Dr. King, Jr. Elementary values positivity, teamwork and support. Since introducing passion projects, I’ve seen students who weren’t always motivated come to class with big smiles and energy. Students shared their projects on a celebratory day at the end of the trial, and it was especially motivating to hear students ask when they would have a second opportunity to pursue a passion project.

We’ve seen this program inspire students like Johntae, Lashay and MarShawn to be critical thinkers and problem solvers while developing their reading and writing skills. It empowered them to take initiative in personalizing their learning, which had the result of boosting excitement about coming to school. The Teachers Guild collaborative helped our school identify how to establish a culture of innovation and better utilize substitute time for passion projects. I encourage all teachers looking to create a culture of innovation to turn underutilized time into opportunities for students to pursue their passions. It truly is a win-win!

#CS4All starts with our teachers

Posted by Dylah Werbner, Education Program Manager

President Obama's Computer Science for All (#CSforAll) announcement in early 2016 emphasized that “we live in a time of extraordinary change.” Computer science (CS) education is being recognized at the federal level as a catalyst for future success. Last month, we joined an open letter to Congress, a request for national funding that would give every student across the U.S the opportunity to learn computer science. The movement to provide quality CS programs is gaining momentum, and Google is proud to be part of the community working toward that goal.

We believe that it’s not only important for our students to be creators of new technology, but for our teachers to also have the opportunity to be innovators and out-of-the-box thinkers. A global study conducted by McKinsey found that one of the main drivers of excellence in the best performing schools worldwide are tools and programs provided for teacher professional development. These opportunities give educators access to share best practices and create improved resources for the curriculum and pedagogy of any particular subject. At Google, we are committed to supporting the professional development of teachers though CS4HS, an annual funding program for global CS teacher professional development opportunities at the high school level.

CS4HS awards bring professional development opportunities to high school teachers who often lack the support and resources to teach computational thinking and computer science in their classrooms. Research institutions or professional development organizations partner with communities of local high school teachers to help them build knowledge, skills, and confidence in teaching computer science and computational thinking through ongoing professional development opportunities.
2015 CS4HS Buffalo State University workshop
Almost every state in the U.S. is grappling with a need for more CS courses and professional development opportunities for teachers. In Nebraska, for example, only nine out of 144 schools (63 high schools and 81 middle schools) offer an IT-related course. Through CS4HS funding and a PD program created by the University of Nebraska at Kearney, teachers will be able to participate in workshops, near-peer mentoring, and a community of practice that helps them integrate CS/IT teaching methodologies into their classrooms, and inspire a new generation of young people in rural Nebraska to become creators of technology.

Programs like the one at the University of Nebraska at Kearney are growing on a global scale. Since the launch of CS4HS in 2009, over 20,000 teachers have been trained through CS4HS professional development opportunities, and over one million students have benefited from these trainings. Funding is awarded to applicants that demonstrate a sound pedagogical approach to CS and a foundation of an ongoing community of practice around CS professional development. This coming school year, Google is increasing its investment in professional development by funding 34 institutions in the US and many others programs worldwide. Check out the CS4HS site for more information, or to learn about the 2017 funding cycle.

Perhaps the most significant emphasis of the McKinsey study is that the “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” The solution lies in a community of advocates that extends beyond our teachers, and builds a culture of dialogue through administrators, parents, policy makers, and companies. By providing funding for CS professional development programs, Google is working to ensure that our teachers are best prepared to serve the next generation of creators, embracing this time of innovation and extraordinary change.

Bring the world’s changing forests inside the classroom

Posted by Emily Henderson, Google Geo Education Outreach

(Cross-posted on Google Lat Long Blog.)

Forests are the mighty lungs of our planet. They absorb carbon dioxide, and emit oxygen on which all people and animals on Earth rely. For the sake of our future, it is critical that all people, including the next generation, understand our global forests in order to manage them sustainably. Today, Science in the Classroom, Dr. Matt Hansen of the University of Maryland, and Google Earth Engine are presenting Global Forest Change Explorer to help engage young people in forest conservation.
Tracking patterns of change in a hotspot zone, Alaska
The Global Forest Change Explorer website contains maps that are available for interactive analysis as well as an accompanying activity worksheet. The Explorer Tool allows students to quickly visualize trends in forest loss and gain, compare different countries and eco-regions, and apply the forest data to try to predict underlying causes where there is significant change in forest density. The Explorer Tool relies on open data that is used by remote sensing and GIS professionals in their work.
Fly to different parts of the world and compare data
A number of years ago, Dr. Matt Hansen and a team of researchers at the University of Maryland turned to Google Earth Engine to map high-resolution global forest cover with Earth Engine's cloud-based image processing and computing. The team mapped global forest loss and gain from 2000 to 2012 at 30-meter resolution for the entire globe. In 2013, the methods and results were published in Science Magazine and online for everyone to explore. These findings are now an important part of the website Global Forest Watch, which gives governments and decision makers free access to the data and tools required to monitor and manage their forests.
Dr. Matt Hansen presenting at the World Economic Forum
Science in the Classroom (SitC) thought this was great research to bring into the classroom and make available to anyone online. SitC packages annotated research papers with supplemental teaching materials to help pre-college and college students understand the structure and workings of scientific research. SitC and Google Earth Engine built the Global Forest Change Explorer to make Dr. Hansen’s data accessible to a younger audience.
Annotations provide supplemental context to Dr. Hansen's paper
We live in a dynamic world where the pressures of population growth increasingly impact and threaten our forests. However, as we continue to make advances in technology, we have better tools to research the health of our planet. Educators can easily flip their classrooms into science labs by combining SitC materials with Global Forest Change Explorer. With these tools, students will leave sessions with a richer understanding of environmental change, more curiosity, and a desire to actively participate in protecting our forests.

Get started with Global Forest Change Explorer today!

Next stop for Expeditions: the International Space Station

Posted by David Quaid, Software Engineer (and space enthusiast)

55 years ago today President John F. Kennedy said:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” 
Sure enough, we met that goal in 1969 when the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon, just a few months before the decade ended.

Space travel still thrills us, even now that we’re several decades beyond watching astronauts on black-and-white TVs. Earlier this year, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned from a year-long mission on the International Space Station, studying the impact of extended space voyages on astronauts’ bodies and minds. We watched Kelly juggle fruit in weightlessness and asked him questions about space travel during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session.

Today’s teachers and students are fortunate in that we can share the space experience a bit more closely with our astronauts. Kids everywhere, and plenty of grownups, can get a better sense of what it must be like to live in weightlessness, primarily eat only vacuum-packed meals, and look out at the stars and Planet Earth every day. This is the idea behind our newest Expedition, created with NASA, which brings the International Space Station right into the classroom.
A view of the Expedition from the teacher's tablet
The new tour gives teachers and kids a view into the crew’s living quarters and the challenges they have doing everyday things. For example, teachers and students can see how space station residents use bungee cords to hold down plates and silverware so they don’t float away mid-bite, and how they anchor themselves to the tables or walls with special footholds so they don’t drift off either. In the Expedition, students can also see where scientists grow red lettuce and other crops. This enables NASA to study how vegetables grow in space — which will help provide nutritious and delicious food for future astronauts who will stay in space for longer and longer missions -- as much as three years for a roundtrip to Mars!

To celebrate the anniversary of President Kennedy’s historic call to action, this week we’re introducing the new Expedition to some of the schools taking part in the Expeditions Pioneer program. We’re also showing off the tour at special screenings of the new awe-inspiring IMAX® 3D film, “A Beautiful Planet,” produced and directed by celebrated filmmaker Toni Myers and narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, the star of The Hunger Games films, and featuring breathtaking images of Earth, shot by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
The London special screening of the new awe-inspiring IMAX® 3D film, "A Beautiful Planet"
“A Beautiful Planet” and the Expeditions tour make a perfect double-feature: stunning views of Earth and the stars from outside the space station, and a view into daily life of astronauts from inside. Teaching the wonders of space is a time-honored way to encourage students to explore their world. Seeing the International Space Station up close can inspire the next generation of astronauts, scientists, or simply lovers of discovery, and bring the world of space exploration to everyone.

Inspiring future makers and scientists with Science Journal

Posted by Chris DiBona, Director, Making & Science and Open Source

We believe that anyone can be a maker. Making doesn't just mean coding or working with electronics. It can be building or cooking, fixing a broken salad spinner or re-sewing a button on a teddy bear. Making is about looking at the world around you and creating - or, you guessed it, making - ways to improve it.

Science is also fundamentally about improving the world around you. It’s not just memorizing facts, wearing a lab coat or listening to a lecture. It’s observing the world around us to figure out how it works and how we can make things better through experimentation and discovery.

To bring out that inner scientist in all of us, today we’re introducing Science Journal: a digital science notebook that helps kids (and adults!) measure and explore the world around them. With this app, you can record data from sensors on your Android phone (or connected via an Arduino), take notes, observe, interpret and predict. Fundamentally, we think this application will help you learn how to think like a scientist!
Use Science Journal and the light sensor in your Android phone to collect data and run experiments
Since we know that hands-on projects increase engagement, cultivate curiosity and spark a lifelong interest in learning, we also teamed up with the Exploratorium - a leader in science education - to develop and assemble creative hands-on learning activity kits to accompany the Science Journal app. These Science Journal kits include inexpensive sensors, microcontrollers and craft supplies that bring science to life in new ways. The kits are available for purchase in the US or can even be assembled yourself.
Build and measure your own wind spinners using Science Journal activities and kits 

See science in action as Imagination Foundation chapters around the world put these activities to use
We’re excited to nurture an open ecosystem where people everywhere can use Science Journal to create their own activities, integrate their own sensors and even build kits of their own. To that end, we have released the microcontroller firmware code on GitHub and will be open sourcing the Android app later this summer. We’re eager to work with hardware vendors, science educators and the open source community to continue improving Science Journal.
Science Journal lets you visualize and graph data from your phone's accelerometer, light sensor, microphone and more. You can record data and set up trials, experiments and projects in the app.

But our goal to inspire budding scientists and makers goes beyond Science Journal. We’ve sent over 120,000 kids to their local science museum as part of Google Field Trip Days, encouraged and supported future changemakers through Google Science Fair and sponsored organizations such as NOVA, FIRST Robotics and Lick Observatory who are pushing science forward for all of us. And to help keep our young scientists safe, we’ve also distributed over 350,000 pairs of safety glasses at schools, makerspaces and Maker Faires around the world.

Many of the Google products used today by billions of people wouldn’t exist if not for the makers, scientists and engineers who wanted to create projects that could help improve our world. If you want to join in, come meet us today through Sunday at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2016, check out the Making & Science initiative and go subscribe to our YouTube channel. Let’s all make science, together.

Education news from Google I/O: tools to take learning further

Posted by Cyrus Mistry and Ope Bukola, Product Managers, Google for Education

Editor's note: We’re writing to you today from Google I/O, our annual conference for developers. Over 7,000 developers gathered for the three day event at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California —right down the street from Google. If you missed the live-stream this week, don't worry; we've got four highlights so far for education below.

Even more apps for Chromebooks
Earlier today we announced that Android apps are coming to Chromebooks, which means teachers and students will have access to more content on their Chromebooks, including a large amount of offline and touch-optimized apps. From Google’s Admin console, administrators will be able to deploy Android apps such as Skype, LightSail, Open eBooks, Office & Explain Everything to students. This feature will be available to administrators during the 2016/17 school year for use on supported Chromebooks. Learn more, including when you can preview some of the apps, in the blog post.

More than one million students have gone on an Expedition
When we look back on our favorite memories from school, many of us think of field trips. Last May, we introduced the Expeditions Pioneer Program, which lets teachers take their students on virtual reality trips to over 200 places using Cardboard. This year at I/O, we announced that over one million students from more than 11 countries have taken an Expedition through the Pioneer Program, to places like Buckingham Palace, the polar bear capital of the world—and in seventh grader Lance Teeselink’s case—Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.
Lance, aspiring architect, takes an Expedition to the tallest building in the world with his seventh grade class

Our team is hard at work to make Expeditions more widely available. Stay tuned to our blog for the latest information. And if you’re ready to bring your class on their first Expedition, sign up for the beta here.

Stronger integrations between Classroom and other apps
Teachers use Classroom as mission control for their classes, launching assignments & discussions across subjects and topics. We announced on Wednesday that we added new coursework integrations to the Classroom API, which lets reporting systems like gradebooks and student information systems sync assignments and grades from Classroom, so that teachers don’t need to manually transfer the data. It also allows learning tools to create assignments, turn in work, and send back grades to Classroom. See how developers like Tynker, GeoGebra, and OpenEd are already using coursework in the Classroom API to strengthen their integrations.

Expanding coding resources to younger students
On Monday, at I/O Youth (our third annual conference for Bay Area students and teachers) we announced a new collaboration with Scratch, MIT’s programming language and community for children. The new partnership will enable developers to design creative coding and learning experiences for kids. We took the first step this week, releasing an early developer preview of Scratch Blocks code. We hope that developers will use Scratch Blocks to create consistent, high-quality programming experiences for kids everywhere.

Keep exploring
Watch the live stream or recordings of this year’s events in full on the Google I/O website. And for more behind-the-scenes looks at Google, from self-driving cars to Project Loon, check out Nat & Lo’s YouTube channel.

Android apps, coming to a Chromebook near you

Posted by Karen Greenleaf, Google for Education

Today at Google I/O, our annual conference for developers, we announced that Android apps will be coming to Chromebooks. That means you’ll be able to do things like edit photos in Photoshop Mix, make a Skype call, open up Office files and work offline -- or take a break with games like Minecraft.

In 2015, US K-12 schools purchased more Chromebooks than all other devices combined (source) and adoption continues to increase in classrooms around the globe. To add even more flexibility to these fast, secure and easy-to-manage devices, we will be bringing Android apps to select Chromebooks, offering access to more content, increased offline options and additional touch-optimized apps for touchscreen models.

Android apps for Chromebooks
A few popular Android apps are already available today on Chromebooks through the App Runtime for Chrome program.

LightSail, an adaptive literacy solution for schools, is one example. "Fostering a love of reading among my English Language Learners has been an ongoing struggle in our class. After introducing LightSail on our school's Chromebooks, I have witnessed a true enjoyment of reading, with students reading for up to 40 minutes at a time on a regular basis. That type of stamina is something I have not seen before from these formerly reluctant readers,” says Christina Di Pietro, an ESL & Humanities Teacher at the James P. Timilty Middle School in Boston, MA. Since LightSail’s Android app became available, students have had another tool in their digital backpack to help them build reading comprehension skills.

For schools with supported touchscreen Chromebooks, touch-optimized Android apps like Explain Everything open up a world of possibilities for students. “The touchscreen on the Chromebooks allows students to enhance the content they create using Explain Everything, making their thinking visible and interactive,” says Jennifer Schlie-Reed, a Digital Learning Coach at Eisenhower Middle/High School in New Berlin, WI. "It provides students opportunities to demonstrate their learning in unique ways.”

The Android app Open eBooks will be available on Chromebooks soon, and is part of the White House ConnectED Initiative. Stacy Kinney, a Librarian and Media Specialist at O.A. Fleming Elementary in Freeport, TX, used Open eBooks to “put otherwise costly books into the hands of our children.” Stacy’s school is a Title One campus. “I value the Open eBook app because it makes quality, appealing books accessible to my students and their families.”
Open eBooks app running on a Chromebook
Android app management for school administrators
School IT administrators will have full control over selecting and managing the Android apps made available to their managed users on Chromebooks. They’ll manage Android apps using the same cloud-based Chromebook content controls they love today, through Google’s Admin Console.

We can’t wait to bring more Android apps to Chromebooks, which will come to supported devices in the 2016-17 school year. In the meantime, you can learn more about bringing Chromebooks to your school.

If you’re an Android app developer looking to bring your app to schools, you can learn more here.