Top 10 Google I/O 2013 Announcements Related To Teaching And Learning

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Google I/O

This week , Google held their annual technology conference named I/O 2013 for Google professionals and developers.   You have to love all the great technology that Google gives to the community for free!  I wanted to share a great summary video by Marques Brownlee and highlight announcements that would impact educators and educational game developers.

  • New Google+: Google released a new user interface that reminds me of Pinterest.   I enjoy the new flat card look and the communities features of Google+.    Google has made it easy to discover communities on topics that you care about.   This is great for building a personal learning network.
  • App Store for education:  In the fall, Google will be launching a focused app store for teachers and students.   Google is working with teachers to collect and organize the store.   This is a nice “back to school” gift from Google.
  • Google Now: Google Now enables you to search for information and resources using conversational voice commands.   In addition, the service tries to anticipate your needs based on current location and the context of your question.    It’s like Siri, but better.
  • Hang outs: In the next few months, Google will phase out Google Talk in favor of Google Hangouts.   Educators like Eduvue and “Teachers teaching teachers“, have been using Google Hangouts to publish great video chat conversations on teaching technology trends.   Google has tried to make this feature more accessible to encourage personal text and video chat.   Our family uses Google Hangouts so our kids can see their grand parents who live in another state.
  • AndroidStudio: To my programmer and computer science teacher friends, we have a new toy!   AndroidStudio is a new code environment for writing Android apps.   I can’t wait to take it for a test drive.  I was impressed with the user interface design features that help you see how your screens render across devices quickly.
  • Improvements Google Chrome: Everyone’s favorite browser just got faster.  Again! Amazing!  From a developer perspective, Google has added tons of new features making it easier to make games and robust apps that live in the browser.  It’s a great time to be a web developer.
  • Opportunities for gamification in education: From a developer perspective, Google has created API’s so that game score boards and badge boards can be shared in the social context of Google+ .    When I saw this feature, I started thinking that this would be helpful in creating alternate reality games for the classroom.   The improved location API’s for Android will help launch the next generation of educational games that you play in the real world… Not just the digital world.
  • Google rocking Malaysian Education System: @googlechrome Malaysian government is bringing Google Apps to their entire education system – 10M students – along with Chromebooks to all schools. #io13
  • @oquidave — Google playstore for Education, chromebooks, & tablets >> Google’s approach to education via @techpostug #io13
  • @GoogleAtWork  What you need to know from I/O: Google I/O announcements for business, government and education customers http://goo.gl/GR5Wi #io13

Check out all the talks at Google I/O 2013 at this link.    I would love to hear your thoughts and comments about Google i/o.   What do you feel would help students and teams grow and learn using Google technology?    What would make your life easier?