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How to change the screensaver on a Mac
December 24, 2010
This post is the last edition of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
Like most people, I look forward to going home for the holidays and enjoying the good food, good company and much needed rest and relaxation. But as the techie in the family (read: I know what the control panel does), I also look forward to setting my parents up with whichever ‘cool’ technologies the evening news happened to mention since the last time I was home. This year I’m guessing I’ll be opening up a Twitter account for Dad and downloading Angry Birds for Mom.
Any time I go home though, I also try to teach them something they’ll be able to do themselves later on. This time, I’m going to show my parents how to change a screensaver on a Mac. Of course, first I’ll have to explain to them what the screensaver is. Here's how I imagine this conversation going:
Me: Want to see how to change your screensaver?
Mom: Sure... what’s a screensaver?
Me: That program on your computer that shows pictures of the family when you’re away.
Mom: Why does my computer show pictures of us when I’m away?
Dad: Computers get lonely, too.
(My dad is the comedian in the family, clearly.)
So instead of going through all that, I decided I’d just make this video instead. A bunch of my friends made videos, too, which you've probably seen over the last few weeks. We figured if we use Youtube to cover the computer stuff, you’ll have more time to play snow football. Of course, you might still have to teach your parents how to watch Youtube videos...
Hopefully you and your parents will find value in these videos, and Happy Holidays!
My mom, dad and brother and me circa when plastic glasses frames were cool the first time.
Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing
Spell “oscilloscope” perfectly
December 23, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
In my video for my family, I demo a quick way to get the correct spelling of a word. Instead of using a spell checker or a physical dictionary (so 90’s), you can use familiar Google Search to learn whether to write “
sharlaton
” or “charlatan,” for example.
This trick even works when communicating with relatives who speak a different language. When I want to wish my mom’s Swiss family and friends a happy new year, I can type “es guetes Nöis” into the Google Switzerland search bar. Google returns the correct spelling “
es guets Nöis
”, scoring me kudos with the family until the next year’s holidays.
My mom, brother, and me wearing our fashionable holiday finest
Posted by Nathalie Arbel, Local Marketing
Google Scholarships - Now Accepting Applications!
December 22, 2010
As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to advancing computing and technology, we are pleased to support the work of our partner organizations in providing scholarships to students studying computer science.
We are excited to announce the following scholarship opportunities in the United States-- Now accepting applications!:
Google Lime Scholarship for Students with Disabilities
- February 6, 2011
Google AISES Scholarship
- Deadline: February 15, 2011
Google Hispanic College Fund Scholarship
- Deadline: March 1, 2011
In addition, we are still accepting applications for the
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
(Deadline: February 1, 2011), and in a few weeks, we will also be opening applications for the Google United Negro College Fund Scholarship.
Scholarship recipients will each receive a $10,000 scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year and be invited to attend the all-expense-paid Annual Google Scholars’ Retreat at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. Scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of applicants’ academic background and demonstrated passion for computer science.
For complete details on all of our scholarships, please visit
www.google.com/jobs/scholarships
.
Giving the Gift of Email
December 22, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
When I go home for the holidays, I usually brace myself for a couple things: cold weather, fighting over the remote with my sister, and the shocking state of my parents’ overflowing email inboxes. Last year my mom asked me how I kept track of it all, and I gave her her favorite Christmas gift yet: teaching her how to start fresh with a new email address.
Maybe, like my dad, you created your email address 15 years ago when your family first got dial-up internet, and it’s time for an update. Or maybe you’ve been hearing your kids brag about a cool email service provider that you’d like to try out. Regardless of why you want to switch, a new email address is a great way to start the new year off with a clean slate and a clean inbox.
If you ask my mom why she switched to Gmail, she might say that she likes using labels to organize her inbox, or that she can archive messages without actually deleting them. But really, I think it’s because after the holidays are over and my sister and I head back across the country, she can chat with us through Gmail whenever she wants. Just ask her what her new favorite emoticon is (hint: it’s the heart! <3).
My mom, sister, me, and dad, reveling in the glory of the 90s.
Posted by Lauren Barbato, Online Sales
How to transfer naked baby photos to your mom’s computer
December 21, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
Sharing photos, documents, video and other files with my family is something I frequently do around the holidays. In particular, I find myself sharing photos of my recent adventures and happenings with my parents.
My Dad is a big photography buff and tech geek (Love you, Dad :) ). Growing up, he always had a nice camera draped around his neck and recently he digitized (scanned) our thousands of family photos and put them onto the home computer. So, we have a stockpile of photos of my basketball games, my sister’s horse shows, naked baby bubble baths, easter egg hunts, trips to the beach, etc.
My Mom is not a tech geek. Recently she told me that she has heard of copy and paste, but doesn’t know how to use it. I recently taught her how to text message and my sister taught her how to book airfare online. However, my mom loves to look at family photos. The easiest way I’ve found to trasnfer photos onto my mom’s computer is by using a USB stick. I hope with the following video, I’ll be able to teach my mom how to transfer photos at any time:
For more videos of Googlers teaching their parents tech, check out
TeachParentsTech.org
.
My mom, me, and dad near Lake Tahoe, CA many summers ago.
Posted by Will Patrick, Enterprise Marketing Team
Holiday tips for Google Calendar
December 20, 2010
The end of the year is such an exciting time – classes are just about over and the holidays are coming. But things can also be a little stressful while you’re wrapping things up. Whether you need to schedule time to study for all your exams or just need to remember to buy a gift for your grandma, here are some Google Calendar features that will help make your life easier for the remainder of 2010.
1. Tasks
Have a lot to remember? Make a
to-do list
! Activate tasks by clicking the Tasks calendar listed under My calendars. You’ll see the Tasks pane expand on the right. Attach a due date to an existing task by clicking the right arrow next to the task, then clicking on the calendar icon to select a date.
2. Event time zones
This new feature
is great if you're traveling for the holidays. Use it to plan events in whatever time zone you’ll be in, or even schedule flights with different departure and arrival time zones.
3. SMS notifications
Get event reminders on the go by setting up SMS notifications. After
registering your mobile phone
, set SMS reminders for individual events within the event page, or create
default SMS notifications
so you won’t miss a thing.
4. Quick Add
If you’re really in a hurry, use
Quick Add
to create events on your calendar. Just click the Quick Add link and type the details of your event (like "Study group at 6PM tomorrow in Gilchrist Hall") and Quick Add will pop the event on your calendar.
5. Background image
This one’s just for fun! Change your calendar background to something festive by first
enabling the Lab
, and then going to Calendar settings to choose your image.
Get started using Google Calendar
to make your life easier over these next few weeks, or check out our
Getting Started Guide
to learn more. Happy holidays!
Posted by Alice Brown, Google Calendar Team
Copying and pasting - not as ubiquitous as you think
December 20, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
Copying and pasting definitely would have come in handy back in 1996 when I was typing out college application after college application, one by one, on my (at the time) super sophisticated word processor. Thankfully, my mother split the process up with me and helped me crank out 6 neatly typed applications, with minimal need for White Out.
Fast forward to 2010. I was at home chatting with my mom as she filled out an offer for one of her clients (she’s a real estate agent), when I noticed that she was typing each of her clients’ names, letter by letter, over and over again throughout the form.
And that’s the moment that copying and pasting forever changed her life.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
Kids, robots and Android phones
December 17, 2010
There’s no doubt that kids love robots and my son has had an Android phone since he was a toddler. It isn’t until we start pairing them together that something truly special forms—the Cellbot!
People have been connecting smartphones with robots for years and in early 2010 some Googlers started to get involved in their 20% time. We first demoed robots from the
Cellbots.com
community in the
Google booth at ISEF 2010
in May. It was amazing to watch how engaged the kids were with understanding how the robots worked and what technology was used for the Android phones to talk to them (hint:
it’s Bluetooth, WiFi and Google Chat
).
In July we let students from the
CAPE Program
take them for a spin and the kids swarmed around the robots while making up games for them. We also took some Cellbots on tour to
Stanford Engineering’s 11th Annual eDay
with a table of robots for everyone to play with.
Then in October we showed off some of the
20% Robotics Task Force team’s work
to the
Home Brew Robotics Club
. This time we saw children and their parents actively discussing clever ways to pair their own custom built robots to Android phones.
Today we’re proud to have released some great enhancements to App Inventor for Android and open-sourced some Java and Python apps that further this concept, which you can read about
on the Google Code blog
. We encourage students everywhere to explore this technology and for educators to build curriculum around these fun learning tools for all ages.
Posted by Ryan Hickman, Engineering Project Manager
Searching for the sunshine and snow
December 17, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
In the town where I grew up, the average temperature fluctuates from 66°F to 83°F. I remember the weather guy on the local news spending more time telling funny stories than sharing the weather forecast. It wasn’t until I moved away for college, where clear skies could give way to thunderstorms in just minutes, that I learned the real value of quick access to a weather report. That’s also when I taught my mom how to check the weather report right from Google for any location in the world. By just typing “weather 08544” she could easily decide whether or not to call and remind me to bundle up.
Looking at the weather forecast is a great way to stir up nostalgia, prepare for a vacation, or decide what to wear in the morning. Whether you’re hoping for sunshine or snow, cross your fingers and head over to Google.com to search for the weather.
Before I knew why weather forecasts exist
Posted by Laura Melahn, Product Marketing Manager
Sharing holiday greetings with Google Maps
December 16, 2010
The holiday season means spending time with family, seeing friends from home and visiting new places. Along with building a snowman in the backyard, for many students the holiday season brings lots of travel!
It’s fun to plan these holiday trips, and to help you share your plans, we’ve designed holiday cards you can email to friends and family. In addition to choosing a holiday cover and adding a personal message, you can select specific directions, a Street View image, or a place to include on the inside of the card.
Since I grew up in New England, the holidays always make me think of skiing. I can send my friends cards with some
inspiring ski scenes
in Street View, or send
directions to Squaw Valley
for an upcoming ski trip.
I can also send friends and family suggestions for
a restaurant
for a holiday dinner or include directions there.
Thanks to
Christoph Niemann
for inspiration
.
You can spread holiday cheer with these online cards, whether sharing winter imagery in Street View or directions for your travels. Start sending at
googlemapsholidays.appspot.com
. Happy holidays!
Posted by Katie Mandel, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps
Find a great place to eat in the neighborhood
December 16, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
For my mom, learning new technology can be pretty overwhelming. Except, of course, when that new technology makes her life easier in a very direct way. (The shopping center really didn’t know what hit it when she got a hold of a bar code scanning app on her mobile phone.)
Since my mom’s a big-time foodie, I thought it’d be perfect to show her how to find great local restaurants using Google Search.
Who knows? Maybe if she finds one she likes, she’ll feel inspired to take her darling son out for a bite to eat (hint, hint, Mom). If you’d like to get more quick videos to help your parents use technology in their everyday lives, check out www.TeachParentsTech.org.
My parents and I at a theme park around 1996. Any guesses as to who was most excited to be there?
Posted by Miles Johnson, Search Marketing Team
Letting everyone do great things with App Inventor
December 15, 2010
Cross-posted from the
Research Blog
In July, we
announced
App Inventor for Android, a
Google Labs
experiment that makes it easier for people to access the capabilities of their Android phone and create apps for their personal use. We were delighted (and honestly a bit overwhelmed!) by the interest that our announcement generated. We were even more delighted to hear the stories of what you were doing with App Inventor. All sorts of people (teachers and students, parents and kids, programming hobbyists and programming newbies) were building Android apps that perfectly fit their needs.
For example, we’ve heard of people building
vocabulary apps
for their children, SMS broadcasting apps for their community events, apps that track their favorite
public transportation routes
and—our favorite—a
marriage proposal app
.
We are so impressed with the great things people have done with App Inventor, we want to allow more people the opportunity to do great things. So we’re excited to announce that App Inventor (beta) is now available in
Labs
to anyone with a
Google account
. To see App Inventor in action, check out this video:
Visit the
App Inventor
home page to get set up and start building your first app. And be sure to share your App Inventor story on the
App Inventor user forum
. Maybe this holiday season you can make a new kind of homemade gift—an app perfectly designed for the recipient’s needs!
Posted by Karen Parker, App Inventor Program Manager
Your desktop background is your palate
December 15, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
Last holiday season was the first time that I accumulated enough funds (read: got a “real job” and stopped living on my mother’s account) to purchase a substantial holiday present for the person who gave me life. The gift? A new laptop to replace her archaic machine from the Ninth Circle. Simply gifting someone else’s creation wasn’t enough, though--I wanted to personalize the experience.
My mother’s a hopeless sap: all of her online passwords are variations of her children’s names (please don’t hack her!); she can never find anything in her purse because it’s engorged by our baby pictures; and her visceral reaction to the question “how are you doing?” is “oh, they (my sister and I) are doing quite well!” So to personalize the laptop, my sister engaged her masterful design skills to produce a desktop background of my mother’s Two Wonders of the World: her daughter and son, with a mint green background, no less (her favorite color). When the day arrived, she ecstatically expressed her appreciation for “a real present...finally!”; the real ringer, however, came when she saw the illuminated screen. She was brought to tears.
Your desktop background is more than the tone with which you begin your computing experience; it’s your palate. Make it dynamic and fun, but most importantly, make it you.
I constantly change my desktop background. Here are a few instances:
Commemorate an important event or holiday, like a birthday or a national day
Promote or anticipate a major upcoming event, like a new movie or sports event
Rectify a bad day (or week) with a motivational quote or inspirational figures (a silhouette of Martin Luther King Jr. is a personal favorite)
Demonstrate loyalty to “your side” if you’re part of a rivalry--from sports teams to mobile phone operating systems (e.g. I’ve had an Android army robot before)
Mirror seasonal or environmental changes, such as a snowy background for the holidays or a beach during the summer
My mother and I, when I still listened to her attentively
Posted by Bing Chen, YouTube Partnerships and Platform Marketing
Find results at the right reading level
December 14, 2010
You may have had the experience while searching on Google of finding results that are either too simple or too complex for the task at hand. A
new feature in Advanced Search
lets you display the reading level of results and filter based on level.
To use the new feature, click “Advanced search” next to the search box and make a selection under “Reading level.”
If you choose to “annotate results with reading levels,” you’ll start seeing a handy bar graph showing the range of content for a particular topic at the top of the results page. This way whether you’re looking for a
basic explanation
of the [physics of frisbees] for your first science fair project,
or you’re designing radical new saucers
as part of your college aerospace class, Google can help you find just the right results.
By choosing “show only basic results” or “show only advanced results” you can sometimes find those needle-in-a-haystack pages that speak your language. For example, most results for [
newtonian physics
] are clearly for specialists in the field, but narrow that to the Basic reading level (hint: click on the “Basic” bar chart label), and you might just find something that actually makes sense. This can be particularly help for people who are learning English as a second language.
On the other hand, if you’re doing serious research on a topic with a lot of fluffy content online (eg:
puppies
), you can use the reading level tool to cut through to the more
learned and interesting results
. Who knew there was a scholarly journal of
pop culture
?
The reading level tool might even help you choose a research topic for your next project. Many searches return results that are on one extreme or the other: a lot of rudimentary information or a bunch of pages intended for Ph.D’s. With reading level information, you can get a sense of how much content has been published to the web at an appropriate level.
Posted by Noah Coccaro, Software Engineer
Searching for the right movie
December 14, 2010
This post is part of the
“Teach Your Parents Tech” series
where Googlers help provide some tips and tricks you can gift your parents with this Holiday Season.
When I head home for the holidays, I most look forward to seeing my family and labradoodles. I know I’ll also be catching up on sleep, reading, and seeing some new movies. While picking up Jane Austen will be an easy decision, figuring out which movies to see will be a tougher choice. My brothers, parents and I will have the inevitable debate between low-brow humor and action options.
When I was home for Thanksgiving, we decided on a movie we wanted to see, only to research showtimes and find that the time didn’t work for everyone. To help your families make the movie selection process easier, I’m sharing some guidance on how you can easily find movie listings and showtimes by searching on Google.com.
While we know this won’t solve all of the comedy versus action movie debates, we hope this will help you find some great movies to watch with your family over the holidays. To see more videos on easy ways to help your parents with technology, visit
www.TeachParentsTech.org
.
When the only movies I watched were cartoons
Posted by Katie Mandel, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps
Teaching your parents tech
December 13, 2010
This post is the first in a new series especially for the Holidays around taking technology home with you this year. Stay tuned for more tips for the next ten days and check out
http://teachparentstech.org
to learn more.
We all know that coming home for the holidays can hold some serious responsibilities for students. Not only are you required to eat a lot, open gifts, and rejoice in some well-deserved time off from studying, but sometimes you’re also expected to serve as the in-house tech support team for your own family. Did you get your mom a new camera? Then you better get ready to teach her how to get the photos she takes from this little thing (camera) onto that bigger thing (computer).
This task is the motivation behind our recently launched campaign to “Teach Parents Tech”. Instead of spending hours trying to explain to your parents what a blog or browser is, wouldn’t it be easier to use
this nifty website
to send your parents (or grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings...) a few tutorial videos that can teach them everything they’ve ever wanted to know about how they can use Google tools and products just like you do?
A bunch of us Googlers often have the same problem, which is why we actually filmed these videos for our own parents. For me personally, I chose to teach my dad how he can use a URL shortener (like
goo.gl
) to keep things short and simple. Just like his long-winded phone calls, he has a tendency to use Gmail chat and text messages (which he only refers to as “SMSes”, by the way) as if they are full-fledged conversations. My gift to him – and myself – this holiday season is to try and teach him how he can simplify his messages and his URLs.
With all the holiday countdowns this time of year (like the
8 days of Hanukkah
,
12 days of Christmas
, or
7 candles for Kwanzaa
) we thought it would make sense to post one of these every day on the Student blog for the next ten days. We hope you (and your parents) find them useful.
A shorter version of me and my and dad circa 1987
Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps for Education team
Celebrating the Second Computer Science Education Week
December 9, 2010
Cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
This week we celebrate and recognize the second annual
Computer Science Education Week
(December 5-11). We’re proud to continue our support for CSEd Week and our commitment to Computer Science education.
We believe that all students should have the opportunity to become active creators of tomorrow's technology. With that in mind, our goal is to use Google’s strengths and infrastructure to increase access to high-quality open educational content and technology in order to invest in the next generation of computer scientists and engineers. Here are a few programs we worked on in 2010 to expand the reach and quality of computing in education:
Implementing new education technologies and tools that scale
In July, we introduced
App Inventor
in Google Labs, a web-based environment that allows students with no computer programming knowledge to build apps for their Android phone. Rather than writing syntax, students design the app and then piece together puzzle-like blocks to set the app’s behavior. Educators around the world have found App Inventor to be a powerful platform for introducing students to the high-level concepts of computer programming and the world of technology.
Increasing access to and the quality of computing curriculum
In October, we released a set of classroom-ready
lessons and examples
—created by teachers in collaboration with Google engineers—showing how educators can incorporate
computational thinking
into K-12 curriculum for math and science. Computational thinking is a set of skills that software engineers use to write the programs that underlay all of the computer applications we use every day. On our site, you can find resources like curriculum templates and forums for educators to share and support ideas around computational thinking.
In mid-2010, we revamped
Google Code University
, a collection of university-level computer science tutorials, labs and lectures, to make it easier for people to find and use materials they need. All Google Code University content is Creative Commons-licensed so college professors can use the materials directly in their classrooms.
We provided grants to 35 universities throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Asia for
Computer Science for High School (CS4HS)
, a workshop to promote computer science in high school curriculum. With funding from Google, colleges develop a two-day program for local high school CS teachers that incorporates informational talks by industry leaders and discussions on new and emerging CS curricula at the high school level.
Influencing positive changes in education through advocacy and community engagement
We continued to partner with many organizations to advocate the importance of computer science in the classroom, such as
Computing in the Core
, a non-partisan advocacy coalition of associations, corporations, scientific societies and other non-profits that strive to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education.
We’re excited to be involved in initiatives that highlight the importance of computer science, and look forward to increasing our involvement with Computer Science Education Week in the coming years. Technology and CS are increasingly important to all of us, and we hope others will pay more attention to this critical field. As for Google, we’ll continue to be an advocate for computing and help elevate computer science education at all levels.
Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations
Chrome Netbooks for Students
December 9, 2010
We
recently announced
the Chrome notebook Pilot program. We think Chrome notebooks will be super useful for students like you – especially if your school is already using
Google Apps for Education
–because they deliver a faster, simpler and more secure computing experience, with lower total cost of ownership than traditional PCs.
For more information and to apply for the pilot, visit the
Chrome notebook website
and check out the full video of yesterday's Chrome event on YouTube:
Posted by Josh Woodward, Chrome Team
2011 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
December 2, 2010
Cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
Dr. Anita Borg devoted her life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling the barriers that keep women and minorities from entering the computing and technology fields. In honor of Anita's vision, we established the
Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
in 2004, awarding scholarships to women who share her passion for technology. Once again, we’re proud to announce the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarships in the U.S. and Canada. The deadline to apply for the 2011 scholarship is Tuesday, February 1, 2011.
The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
is open to current female students who are entering their senior year of undergraduate study or enrolled in a graduate program in the 2011-2012 academic year at a university in the
United States
or
Canada
. Students should be enrolled in a computer science, computer engineering or a closely related technical program, and maintain a record of strong academic performance. Scholars and finalists will be announced in May 2011 and will be invited to attend the annual Google Scholars’ Retreat—a three-day networking retreat at the Googleplex in Mountain View in the summer of 2011.
The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship for First Years
is open to current female high school seniors who are intending to enroll as full-time students at a university in the U.S. for the 2011-2012 academic year. Applicants should have a record of strong academic performance and plan to pursue a degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a closely related technical program. The winning scholars will be invited to attend the
Google FUSE
networking retreat in 2012.
You can hear from some of this year’s scholars on how receiving the Anita Borg scholarship has impacted them:
For those of you outside of North America, the Google Anita Borg Scholarship program is also available in Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and New Zealand—visit
www.google.com/anitaborg
for more information.
Finally, the Anita Borg Scholarship is just one of many scholarships and networking opportunities we offer to students in order to encourage them to excel in technology and become active role models and leaders in the field. For more information about all of Google’s scholarship programs, please visit
www.google.com/jobs/scholarships
.
Posted by Azusa Hanashima, Talent & Outreach Programs
A curious guide to browsers and the web
November 19, 2010
Many of us spend a ton of time on the World Wide Web, be it reading the news, researching, checking email, or chatting with friends around the world almost instantaneously. And we can do all of these activities through a web browser.
But how do browsers and the web actually work? What do terms like “cookies” or “cloud computing” even mean? More practically, how can we keep ourselves safe from security threats like viruses when we’re online?
To help answer these questions, we collaborated with the illustrator
Christoph Niemann
to publish an online guidebook called
“20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web.”
This handy guide is for those of us who’d like to better understand the technologies we use every day.
“20 Things” is written by the Chrome team, and continues our
tradition
of finding new ways to help explain complex but fascinating ideas about technology. Many of the examples used to illustrate the features of the browser refer back to Chrome.
We built “20 Things” in HTML5 so that we could incorporate features that hearken back to
what we love
about books—feeling the heft of a book’s cover, flipping a page or even reading under the covers with a flashlight. In fact, once you’ve loaded “20 Things” in the browser, you can disconnect your laptop and continue reading, since this guidebook works offline. As such, this illustrated guidebook is best experienced in
Chrome
or any up-to-date, HTML5-compliant modern browser.
For things you’ve always wanted to know about the web and browsers but may have been afraid to ask, read on at
www.20thingsilearned.com
(or, you can use the handy shortened URL at
goo.gl/20things
). If you find “20 Things” informative, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family!
Posted by Min Li Chan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Chrome
Running for office with Google Docs
November 4, 2010
A few months ago, my colleague Julia and I were at a technology conference for educators, and we had the chance to hear first-hand how much teachers loved the capabilities that Google Docs brings to their classrooms. They were so excited to show of their favorite features like forms, and working on the same docs at the same time.
We knew we wanted to share that same excitement with even more teachers and students. Inspired by the
Search Stories videos
, we set off to give one fun example of how Google Docs might be used your school. The result is this video:
As the
election results
trickle in, we hope you enjoy seeing some of the cool features Google Docs offers in action. Hopefully it will inspire you to think of other great ways to use it on your campus!
Posted by Bryan Carroll, Consumer Operations Strategist, Google Docs
Introducing the Docs Community Channel
November 3, 2010
Two years ago, we created the
Google Docs Community on YouTube
as a space to feature user-created videos about
Google Docs
. Today, we’re reviving the channel with new life and new videos from the community and the Google Docs team. We even have a special playlist geared especially toward students and teachers.
This channel is a great resource for learning about Google Docs in more detail, and for sharing your success stories and knowledge for others to benefit from. The channel will become even more valuable the more contributions we receive, so we're looking to you to help build this up and make it even better. If you have a demo, tutorial, or testimonial you'd like to share with the world, make a video telling the world all about it and then submit it to the community channel for others to enjoy. Submit your stories on our
video submission form
– we may even feature it on our blog or Twitter feed!
On the channel, you can view Google Docs success stories:
And learn how to use features in Google Docs and Sites, ranging from basic editing to features used by our most advanced users:
You’ll even be able to check out new Google Docs and Sites features:
Check out the channel
to connect with the Docs community and the Google Docs team, and learn tips and tricks. If you want to hear more, just click the subscribe button on the channel, and if you’d like to submit a video to share with the world, simply fill out
this form
.
Posted by Julia Harter, Google Docs Community Team
2011 Google Online Marketing Challenge
October 26, 2010
Calling all students: registration for the 2011
Google Online Marketing Challenge
is now open!
“Thanks to the Google Online Marketing Challenge we have come to realize
that a well tailored AdWords campaign can be a very effective marketing
tool. The students were able to make this campaign cost effective whilst
also meeting our customers expectations”
- Participating business
“It has been a really valuable experience as a future marketer to run a
Google Adwords campaign, but it was also a rewarding one to know that we
were
able to make a difference to our client’s business."
- Participating student
The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global student competition open to any higher education institution anywhere in the world. The 2010 Challenge had over 12,000 students in 60 countries competing. This year, we would like the Challenge to reach even more people ... and we need your help in getting the word out!
How does it work?
Teams of 3-6 students receive US$200 of online advertising with AdWords and then find local businesses to work with to devise an online marketing campaign. Teams outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess the results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing activities. The winners are judged by an international panel of independent academics.
In the ever changing world of online marketing, the Challenge is a great way for you and your classmates to get some hands-on marketing experience. It's a skill that will come in handy as you graduate and prepare to enter a tough job market, but most importantly: it's a fun and engaging way to gain real-world experience helping businesses develop their online marketing strategies.
How can I register?
Your professor, lecturer or whoever teaches you, enters their student team into the Challenge. If you think your professors might be interested in signing their classes up for the Challenge, let them know about this opportunity! Your professors can obtain more information in the
Academic Guide
which will provide them with all the details they need to help them decide if the Challenge is right for their class.
The Challenge is open to any university and any discipline around the globe, at graduate or undergraduate level.
What’s the timeline?
Registration closes: January 14, 2011
Challenge starts: January 31, 2011
Challenge ends: June 10, 2011
Winners announced: July 2011
Register now at
www.google.com/onlinechallenge
.
Exploring computational thinking
October 25, 2010
Take a minute to think back to some of your past science fair projects or lab experiments. What elements did they have in common? What elements were different?
While every project or experiment may have been unique in the problem they were trying to solve, they all followed the same basic template of title, problem, hypothesis, materials, procedure, data and results, and conclusion. This ability to notice similarities, differences and trends is called pattern recognition. The ability to then extract out the unnecessary details and generalize those that are necessary is called pattern generalization, which leads us to an abstraction.
These are just some of the problem-solving skills that we apply when we design and run an experiment. Other skills include decomposition (the ability to break down a tasks into sub-tasks, e.g., when we specify each of the materials that we’ll need to conduct the experiment) and algorithm design (the ability to build a repeatable, step-by-step process to solve a particular problem, e.g., when we create the procedure so that others can understand our process and run that same experiment).
All of these skills make up what we consider to be
computational thinking (CT)
, a set of techniques that software engineers at Google and elsewhere apply all the time to write the programs that underlay the computer applications you use every day, including search, Gmail and Google Maps. Not only is this 21st century skill critical to being successful in the field of computer science, it’s also increasingly important to several careers outside of our industry given the ubiquity of technology in our lives today. As a result, many universities have expanded their traditional majors to now also include studies where key components involve computing. For example, computational neuroscience is the study of how the brain learns and computes, using computational principals to understand perception, cognition, memory and motor behaviors; while computational linguistics involves developing algorithms to process natural languages.
With this changing educational landscape in mind, a group of California-credentialed teachers along with our own Google engineers have developed a program called
Exploring Computational Thinking
, which is committed to promoting CT throughout the K-12 curriculum to support student learning and expose everyone to this critical set of skills. Similar to some of our other initiatives in education, including
CS4HS
and
Google Code University
, we’re providing educators with access to our curriculum models, resources and communities to help them learn more about CT and discuss it as a strategy for teaching and understanding core curriculum, as well as easily incorporate CT into their own curriculum, whether it be in math, science, language, history or beyond.
For more examples on computational thinking or for resources on how to expand on your own CT skills, visit us at:
www.google.com/edu/ect
.
Posted by Elaine Kao, Education Program Manager
Google Code-in: School’s Out, Code’s In!
October 7, 2010
(this post is cross-posted from the
Open Source at Google Blog
)
We are very pleased to announce
Google Code-in
, an open source development and outreach contest targeted at 13-18 year old students around the world.
Some of you may remember the pilot program from 2007-2008 we ran called the
Google Highly Open Participation Contest
. This contest gave 400 students around the world an opportunity to help out open source projects on the following kinds of tasks:
1. Code: Tasks related to writing or refactoring code
2. Documentation: Tasks related to creating/editing documents
3. Outreach: Tasks related to community management and outreach/marketing
4. Quality Assurance: Tasks related to testing and ensuring code is of high quality
5. Research: Tasks related to studying a problem and recommending solutions
6. Training: Tasks related to helping others learn more
7. Translation: Tasks related to localization
8. User Interface: Tasks related to user experience research or user interface design and interaction
It was a huge success, and we’re looking forward to another great year ahead of us with the contest with its new name, Google Code-in.
Be sure to check out our
Frequently Asked Questions
about the contest for answers to your questions about participating.We’re hoping to get pre-university students from all over the world involved. So please help us spread the word.
Stay tuned to this blog and to our
mailing list
for more updates on the contest. We will announce the mentoring organizations that are participating on November 5. The contest starts on
November 22, 2010
!
By Carol Smith, Open Source Team
Online Office Hours with Google Docs
October 4, 2010
Cross-posted on the
Google Docs Blog
.
Alex is a senior at Harvard University, and interned this summer on Google's marketing team. Here he shares how he uses Docs to save time (and body heat) braving the cold Eastern winters. If you have a tip to share on this blog, please
let us know
!
Now that the dorm move-in dust has settled and you have your class schedules all figured out, I wanted to share one of my favorite ways to use Google Docs that might help you stay on top of your work, save some time and maybe even stay a little warmer this school year!
I use the real-time collaboration in Google Docs to hold online office hours with my professors and TAs. This allows me to collaborate, edit and revise my papers and reports in real-time no matter where my TAs or professors are on campus.
The air is already getting
pretty crisp here in Boston
and – if your school is in a similarly cold climate – you know exactly how nice it can be to avoid that icy trek across campus to office hours during the winter months. Here is how I use real-time collaboration in Google Docs to hold online office hours with my TAs so that I can review, revise and edit my assignments from the comfort and warmth of my own dorm room:
Set up some time to ‘meet’ with your professor or TA (hint: it's easy to do using
Google Calendar
). Sign into Google Docs at
docs.google.com
to get started.
Once in Google Docs, click the 'Share' button in the upper right hand corner. Enter your professor or TA’s email address in the ‘Add people’ field and click ‘Share’.
Your professor or TA will receive a link to the doc and a notification telling them that you have shared your doc with them. When they open the doc you will notice that their user name will appear in the top right corner of the screen. You are now collaborating in Google Docs.
Your professor or TA can now help you revise your doc in real time. Clicking the blue box in the upper right hand corner of the screen will allow you to chat with them and ask questions as you move through the doc. Your editor can also add comments to your doc without actually rewriting the text. Highlighting a passage and then selecting 'Insert > Comment' will allow them to make a note about that section to the right of the page.
Your professor or TA’s cursor will be visible as they move through the doc to show where there are currently reviewing or editing. Their cursor will appear in the color corresponding to the box next to their display name in the chat box. When they highlight a passage you will also be able to see their highlighted section in their color. As more people are invited to collaborate on the doc they will have different colors assigned to them so that you can tell who made each comment or revision.
Holding online office hours with Google Docs is just one of the ways to use Google to simplify your life as a student.
Stay tuned for more tips on using Google to make life at school easier on the Google Student Blog or
submit your own
to share!
Posted by Alex Roux, Harvard University
Stay connected on campus with Google Voice
September 28, 2010
Cross posted from the
Google Voice Blog
Heading off to college usually means packing up the car and saying goodbye to your family and friends, so the
Google Voice
team put together a bunch of ways to make it cheaper and easier to stay in touch while you’re on campus. We also thought back to our own days living in dorms and cramming in the library to create a list of student-friendly tips for getting the most out of your phone while you’re away at school.
1. Save your money for something better than minutes
Send unlimited text messages for free -- from your
phone
or
the web
Make free long distance calls
in the US and to Canada with Gmail
Call friends studying abroad
or call home if you’re an international student for as little as
2 cents/minute
2. Use your phone the way you actually want to
Setup a free Google Voice
number
that will ring all of your phones at once (dorm phone, cell phone, Gmail, etc.) so you never miss a call {a number that stays with you even if you forget to pay your bill or change cell phone provider]
Get
voicemail transcriptions
via email and text during class
Enable
do not disturb
to send your calls directly to voicemail when you want to sleep in on the weekends or need to get some studying done
3. Make calls when your phone can’t
Calling in Gmail
makes it possible to call phones from right inside of your Gmail account. This makes a super handy alternative to your mobile phone for things like:
Calling from dorm rooms with non-existent cell phone reception
Locating a mobile phone that is buried in the couch
Ordering a pizza when your phone battery is dead
So grab your
Google Voice number
, get Google Voice on your
mobile phone
, or fire up your Gmail account and
start making calls
. No quarter required.
Google Voice is currently only available in the U.S. And if you’re new to Google Voice, check out our introductory videos at
youtube.com/googlevoice
.
Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
Google Chrome Extensions at School: Get more done!
September 23, 2010
Whether you’re
writing a term paper
for your classic Greek literature class or
collaborating with your lab group over IM
, Google Chrome extensions can also help you keep track of all the important things you have to do during the day. For our last post in the series
, we will highlight a few Chrome extensions to help you stay on task while in school.
Suppose it’s late at night and you have a big exam in the morning, but you’re still watching random videos or playing games on the web.
StayFocusd
lets you control where you spend your time online by limiting the amount of time you spend on specific web sites. You can also customize your settings to block or allow specific sites or pages.
If you’re like many students who are juggling academics, athletics, a part-time job and social lives, there are so many ways to lose track of your busy schedule.
DayHiker
is a great extension to help you keep track of upcoming deadlines and meetings. It lets you check your schedule or tasks, preview upcoming events and even check out the weather forecast at the same time.
RemindMe
is another useful extension that allows you to set up reminders, so you don’t forget to email those lecture notes to your study group or miss your next class.
We hope these extensions help students like you make the most of your time during the school year. You can find more useful Chrome extensions in the
gallery
, and if you don’t have Google Chrome yet, you can get the browser
here
.
Posted by Koh Kim and Meredith Papp, Google Chrome Team
Google India Celebrates Diversity
September 22, 2010
This post is cross-posted from
The Official Google India Blog
.
Never judge a search engine by its interface. Behind that simple search window is one of the most complex technology infrastructures in the world, and it’s run by an equally diverse group of people. At Google, we don’t just accept difference – we thrive on it, we celebrate it, and we support it for the benefit of our employees, our products, and our community. Google aspires to be an organization that reflects the globally diverse audience that our search engine and tools serve.
In striving towards this mission, the Google India Women in Engineering Awards was instituted in 2008 to recognize and reward deserving women students in Computer Science and related majors, and inspire them to become active participants and leaders in creating technology. We had 8 award recipients in 2010, 9 in 2009 and 16 in 2008. The initiative has been positively and enthusiastically received by both the students and colleges alike, lauded by the corporates and is now an established entity in the student community.
With three successful editions behind us, we are pleased to return with the
Google India Women in Engineering Award 2011
. This year, the award will open for applications on September 15, 2010, and is open to any woman student of Computer Science, in an under-graduate, post-graduate or doctoral program, that meets the
application criteria
. Applications remain open till October 31, 2010.
Aspirants to the award will be assessed on their academic excellence, passion for Computer Science and demonstrated leadership and the awardees will each receive a sum of INR 1,00,000. The winners will be announced in February, 2011. We look forward to inviting the winners for a conclave at the Google India engineering office.
In the words of an award recipient from 2009, Amisha Khera (Jaypee Institute of Information Technology), "Computer science has given me an opportunity to conceive, believe and achieve my ideas, by opening the door to an astounding world of innovations. Technology may have limitations on what it can accomplish but on the contrary, we as budding engineers do not."
We couldn’t agree more! With the institution of this award, we hope to recognize women students who have made a mark in the field of Computer Science and hope it inspires many more to take up studies in this field and pursue it as a career.
Posted by Keerthana Mohan, Diversity and Talent Inclusion Manager, APAC, Google
Recent updates to Google Docs
September 21, 2010
Whether you took a break from Google Docs for the summer to relax in the sun or your school just moved over to
Google Apps
and you’re learning more about Google Docs, we’ve got some fun additions that we think you’ll enjoy.
New videos
If you’re new to Google Docs or don’t use it very often, the new
Google Docs YouTube channel
is a good place to start. These videos give a high level overview and steps to get started. And since each video is focused on one feature, its easy to only learn about the ones that matter most to you.
Improved sharing
If you’re a long time user of Google Docs, chances are that you share your documents with classmates. We recently made
sharing easier
while giving you more control. You can see who has access to your document at a glance and the new cleaner, simpler interface let’s you see who has access, manage access and invite others all in one place.
Documents
If you work on documents with friends in real-time, you’ll appreciate
collaborative highlighting
in documents. You can now see the text that other editors are highlighting as they select it. So if someone is about to delete something on your screen or drag text somewhere else, you’ll see them highlight that text before anything changes.
We’ve also added more
page size options
to documents, helping you get the exact format required for your classes.
Lastly, if you have a pdf or image file that you want to edit it in Google Docs, you now can. We added optical character recognition (OCR) to Google Docs letting you convert images with text directly into a Google document.
Spreadsheets
It can be embarrassing to share a file that has spelling mistakes. Using the same technology that is in documents, we’ve added
spell check in spreadsheets
this summer. Now you can share spreadsheets without fear.
Finally, with the power of the cloud, you have access to and can share your files from basically any device without needing to print out anything. That said, we understand that there are occasions when you still need to print, such as turning in an assignment. That’s why we’re excited about two new features for printing: selection printing and gridless printing. These two new options allow you to not only customize your printouts, but also save ink in the process.
That’s just a small sampling of
what’s new in Google Docs
. If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest Google Docs news, subscribe to the
Google Docs blog
.
Posted by Peter Harbision, Product Marketing Manager, Google Docs
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