Ben's Education & Tech Blog

     Around 1995, my Dad purchased the family our first computer. It was a Compaq and it was amazing. I could play games like Warcraft, write papers at home, and surf the internet using AOL. The internet opened up all kinds of new possibilities for me. In fact, I used the internet to purchase a new processor and additional RAM for the Compaq so I could play better games and do things faster. I didn't tell my Dad what I had done until afterwards. Thank goodness it worked!

I'm a tech nerd, and I'm proud of that fact.  I'm also fairly picky about many things, including about being able to pick and choose the products I want to use. In the past year and 3 months or so, I have owned a Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Moto X, HTC One M8, and LG G3.    It's no secret that I love Android Phones, but for the first time since the iPhone was introduced I was tempted to make the switch to iOS. In the end, I didn't, but that doesn't mean it's not the right smartphone for anyone one else.  However, I went through so many different phones in the past year because  I was looking for one that had everything I wanted and had service where I live and work. Finally I feel that I have found the phone in the Nexus 6, but I will get to that in a bit.  While I love the N6, I hated the experience I had to go through to get it activated. 

I consider myself a very fortunate person.  I have a super fantastic wife, an awesome family, a rewarding job at a school I love to go to everyday and I could go on.  I was also very fortunate to be able to test Google Glass for the past year and a few months. It has been a great experience overall, and one that I would not trade away easily.

As many people who have gotten into a discussion with me about grading know, I hate grades.  I know that I'm not alone in this regard.  In fact, I would venture to guess that no teacher that enjoys teaching and watching students blossom throughout the course of a semester or year like grades.  Grades are so 1950, which is where many post-secondary schools are also stuck in terms of needing a grade point for students to attain. 

        Last weekend, starting on the 2nd of November, I began a serious week of Google in Education Activities.  On Saturday, I presented on two topics at the RSSD Ninja Academy in Texas.  I was able to do this through one of my favorite Google Apps, Hangouts!  Both sessions went really well, and they got me prepared for presenting at and attending the Midwest Google Summit.

Part 3 Final Thoughts      Google Glass has been a pretty great experience so far, and I have generally enjoyed using it.  The past few weeks I have been doing more at home and not needing to where Glass as much.  I do have to say that getting directions has continued to be amazing.  I use directions, sending/receiving messages, and checking notifications very often while on Glass and this all works pretty well.  The software continues to update and get better. XE8 just came out and added some cool features that I think will be really big as more software and apps are developed for Glass.  

     In part 1 (which you can read here  if you missed it) of the my first impressions, I discussed mostly hardware.  In part 2, I will talk about the software, user interface/experience and Glassware apps.  I decided a third and maybe a fourth part might be smart to keep things a little shorter.  I plan on writing about the experience of using Glass in public and the implications of Glass in Education.  With that said, let's get to it!