We all know Google Search. And Google Documents. And Google Earth. But...

there are many uncharted Google tools in Google Labs (many not even released yet!) that I bet you didn't know exist. Leave a comment and let me know if you've heard of any of these... 1.) Google Docs - Google Docs is a suite of products that lets you create different kinds of documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store your documents and your other files -- all online, and all for free. With an Internet connection, you can access your documents and files from any computer, anywhere in the world. 2.) Google Mars - Doesn't look promising that you'll be able to send your students to Mars anytime soon... at least not in person! Take a tour of Mars with this nifty Google tool where you can view the planet in three views: Elevation, Visible, or Infrared. 3.) Google Building Maker - A great 3D modeling tool used for adding buildings to Google Earth. You can select a city and create a real building in that city based on images provided by Google. 4.) Google Swiffy - Annoyed that you can't view Flash files on your iPad? You're not alone. Haven't tried this one myself, but Google claims "Swiffy converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player (such as iPhones and iPads). 5.) Google Music India - Listen to thousands of full Indian songs. You can search by artist, albums, or songs. Great way to spice up a lesson on India. Google Music Beta is under way shortly 6.) Google App Inventor - Who said you needed to be a programmer to build great mobile applications? With Google's App Inventor you can visually design applications and use blocks to specify application logic. 7.) Google Image Swirl - Have visual learners in your classroom? With this neat tool from Google you can organize image search results based on their visual and semantic similarities. They results are displayed in a unique exploratory interface, great for brainstorming, researching, and exploring.

2011 Clarity Creative Institute www.TheCR8Vview.com

Top 7 Education TEDTalks

Do you have ideas that are worth spreading? TED certainly does. Get inspired by watching the following 10 Education TEDTalks that our Personal Learning Network recommended. TEDTalks: "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". 1. JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure
At her Harvard commencement speech, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling offers some powerful, heartening advice to dreamers and overachievers, including one hard-won lesson that she deems "worth more than any qualification I ever earned."

2. Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

3. Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

4. Sugata Mitra: How kids teach themselves

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

5. Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.

6. Elizabeth Gilbert: Nurturing creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

7. Bill Gates: Mosquitos, malaria and education

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world's biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them.

2011 Clarity Creative Institute www.TheCR8Vview.com