Google Classroom, mobile version

Google Classroom is a big deal, just as a set of utilities to make instruction work a bit better. Now it's an app: Google rolling out Classroom mobile app for students, teachers | ZDNet

The mobile version of Classroom, Lugo explained, is designed to further facilitate communications between teachers and students, namely through the addition of a teacher assignments page and the ability to archive classes.

Students will also be able to attach files (i.e. PDFs) and use the mobile device's built-in camera to attach photos to their assignments, whether they be drawings for an art class, a family tree for social studies, or diagrams and results for science experiments.

"And if they've forgotten their homework, they can ask someone at home to snap a photo, text it and then turn it in with the app," Lugo remarked. "Of course, if the dog has actually eaten it, Classroom can't help you."

My main reaction to this is a memory of correspondence-school courses in elementary school, just over half a century ago while living in Veracruz. Writing under Mom's supervision had advantages, even with the actual teachers being weeks away by snail mail. Google Classroom utilities can't replace teachers -- but they can expand the set of available frameworks for teaching.

Or then again, maybe not.

Field Trips With Augmented Reality

This post is sort of a placeholder, for a train of thought prompted by reading Roadtrippers Redesigns the Travel Guide for Esoteric Exploration | Wired Design | Wired.com

Discover interesting places and paths through the country on the Roadtrippers app.

Field trips, or travel more generally, have always been an essential part of education, but it has recently gotten easier to see what you're looking at whether it's a rock, a bird, a building... you can look it up online while you're right in front of it. Like many people, I'm willing to sign up for a tour...but I'd be happier to sign up for a virtual tour at my own pace, taking the detours I wanted to take and learning what I wanted to learn, or just going along while one of my kids did so....I'd download a zillion video segments in advance so I could actually hear what the tour guide wanted to say. Wouldn't you? And I'd also like to take more tours by telepresence...
Well, maybe not. I dunno