Stephen's Untold Stories

And they celebrate in typical Google style.

This is the final of three Google logos celebrating the anniversary of H.G. Wells’ birthday.

More information here.

Today’s logo.

Anybody know what’s going on? Ten days ago we got this one.

Are they preparing us for the invasion??

Interesting logo.

Apparently so!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7y7NafWXeM

Google celebrates this annual event. Anybody going to do a lot of watching?

I must say that I am really enjoying my Google Voice number. This article has even given a non-journalist like me so good ideas.

Every time you answer a call you are presented with three options: answer the call, send it to voicemail, or listen in on the voicemail. Doing the latter lets you break into the message the caller is leaving to speak with them. When someone calls who is in your address book, a computerized voice announces his or her name when you pick up the phone.

This is a huge improvement for reporters like me who don’t have Caller ID on their work phones. Normally when I pick up my work phone, I have no idea if it’s a PR person trying to pitch me a technology product to review, a reader looking to rant about the digital TV transition, or a source I’ve been trying to reach.

When someone leaves a voicemail, it’s automatically transcribed as text, available to listen to online and sent to you as an e-mail. The transcription of words leaves a lot to be desired, but it does a good job getting phone numbers right. Being able to access voicemail messages from the Web saves a lot of time because you no longer have to call into your voicemail and sit through annoying prompts (“To listen to the message details push 1″). You can also e-mail voicemail messages, download them or embed them on your blog or Web site.

Since a record is kept online of every call placed and received, you don’t have to worry about callers hanging up without leaving a number or about losing important phone numbers or voicemail messages.

Read the rest here.

Another one for all you teachers to bookmark.

Web search can be a remarkable research tool for students – and we’ve heard from educators that they could use some help to teach better search skills in their classroom.

The following Search Education lessons were developed by Google Certified Teachers to help you do just that. The lessons are short, modular and not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match to what best fits the needs of your classroom. Additionally, all lessons come with a companion set of slides (and some with additional resources) to help you guide your in-class discussions.

Module A: Understanding Search Engines
Understanding the fundamentals of how search engines work will help your students become better searchers. This module starts with basic concepts and concludes with something that educators overwhelmingly asked us to cover: teaching students how to judge search results and validate the authority of sources they use.

1. Start your engines (Basic)
Web 101; search engines overview; online content that is indexed and searched.

2. Which link should I follow? (Intermediate)
How Google search works; anatomy of a search results page.

3. Believe it or not (Advanced)
Validating site authority; taking a research stance when using a search engine.

Read the rest, including the links for all of the modules, here.

Outstanding list!

1. Biography – This is a keyword for students and teachers alike.  Anytime you are discussing a historical or significant figure, using the keyword biography narrows down the search quickly.  Additionally, I would add site:edu or site:gov to give better results.
2. Discussion questions – This key phrase is a must for language arts and social studies teachers if you are looking for questions you can either put on a test or use in classroom discussions.
3. Practice Exercises – Math and grammar teachers need to grab a hold of this key phrase as you will quickly locate a wealth of premade resources for your students.  Some will be printable and others will be interactive.
4. Interactive – using this keyword will help you find websites that work great with interactive whiteboards.  Generally these are sites that allow the user to manipulate the website content in some way.  It’s a guaranteed winner.

Complete list here!

I am thoroughly satisfied with my G1.

Click the image for the full-sized version.

Expect to see more and more of this.

Math students in this high-performing school district used to rush through their Algebra I textbooks only to spend the first few months of Algebra II relearning everything they forgot or failed to grasp the first time.

So the district’s frustrated math teachers decided to rewrite the algebra curriculum, limiting it to about half of the 90 concepts typically covered in a high school course in hopes of developing a deeper understanding of key topics. Last year, they began replacing 1,000-plus-page math textbooks with their own custom-designed online curriculum; the lessons are typically written in Westport and then sent to a program in India, called HeyMath!, to jazz up the algorithms and problem sets with animation and sounds.

“In America, we run through chapters like a speeding train,” said John Dodig, the principal of the 1,728-student Staples High School here. “Schools in Singapore and India spend more time on each topic, and their kids do better. We’re boiling down math to the essentials.”

That means Westport students focus only on linear functions in Algebra I, taught in seventh, eighth or ninth grade depending on student ability, and leave quadratics and exponents to Algebra II, eliminating the overlap and repetition typical of most textbooks and curriculum guidelines. Westport has also scaled back exercises like long formal proofs in geometry, revising lessons and homework assignments to teach students to defend their answers to math problems as a matter of routine rather than repeatedly writing them out.

Westport’s curriculum overhaul joins other recent critiques of mile-wide, inch-deep instruction in the long-running math wars within American education. In 2006, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics called for a tighter focus on basic math skills. Two years later, a federal panel appointed by President George W. Bush urged that pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade math curriculums be streamlined after finding that math achievement for American students was at “a mediocre level” compared with that of their peers worldwide.

Westport school officials say their less-is-more approach has already resulted in less review in math classes, higher standardized test scores and more students taking advanced math classes. The percentage of the district’s 10th graders receiving top scores on state exams rose to 86 percent last year from 78 percent in 2006. Advanced Placement calculus and statistics classes enrolled 231 students this year, from 170 in 2006, and a record 44 students will be able to take multivariable calculus this fall, up from four in 2006.

But while Westport’s new approach has attracted interest in the math education world, the vast majority of schools in Connecticut and elsewhere continue to race through dozens of math topics in each grade because of concerns that cutting back could hurt student performance on state assessments and SATs.

Hank Kepner, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said that most schools choose among prepackaged math curriculums, which have to be expansive enough to meet wide-ranging standards for every state, and that he had not heard of another district trying to write its own.

“I give them kudos for trying it,” he said. “But I’m worried that not many districts will have the amount of support needed to pull off a new curriculum and sustain it.”

Read the rest here.

I must admit that I was never really into Tetris as much as many people I know. I do enjoy it, but I’d rather play Minesweeper most of the time.

This is really amazing. You do need to have Google Earth 5.0 installed in order to view the project.

This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.

Check it out here.

Here’s the story.

Looks like this is getting serious.

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map