Update: I'm using Google+ , link to a good article on the topic - WAS: I want to explore GooglePlus. I've been invited, but Google won't let me come inside to play!

Update:  I am exploring Google+,  in the meantime, take a look at the following article:

Google+ is Awesome, Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

Keith Kleiner, Singularity Hub, 4/6/11

My recent blog post linking to an article about Google + and education was found by someone searching for "Google Plus". It was the fourth link in the search.   

I've been invited to join Google+, but Google isn't ready to let me in to play!

Interesting article about Google Plus and Social Tools for Schools (Audrey Watters, ReadWrite Web)

I've been invited to Google Plus, but can't play there yet until further notice.  In the meantime, I'd like to share an interesting article about the potential for Google Plus for use in education settings:


Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For?
Audrey Watters, ReadWrite Web, 4/2/11)


Thanks to Stephanie Richardson for the link!

Augmented Reality Cookies: Link to video and website for QKies, a new twist that blends cookies and AR.

QKies is a cooperative project of Juchem Gruppe, a German food trade company, and DFKI, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.  QKies is a special twist on baking cookies that involves the use of QR codes that people can share as they share cookies with others:

"Give your friends and acquaintances cookies, they send you directly to a specific site. For example, this can be a video on YouTube, a photo from Flickr or your own website."



Below is a picture from a blog post about QKies:

-Bemme51 

Here is an introductory video of the product, in German:

QKies - sag's mit Keksen from r3 media on Vimeo.

Below is a video created by Johannes Schoening of his augmented reality Christmas Cookies.  The idea for the concept, as you see, started out as a joke, after his wife asked him to bake some cookies for the holidays. 




Johannes worked as a senior researcher at DFKI and is now following his new motto,  "Baked to the Future" at "people interactive" (http://www.people-interactive.de/) in Cologne.

GarageBand on the iPad2 is Awesome!

For just $4.99, this app has given me hours of joy - and I've only had it for a week!  The first time I played around with it, I exclaimed that I no longer have a need for my Motif 8 keyboard.

(Seriously, my husband now thinks I'll be unloading my keyboard on eBay or Craigslist soon.)

Below are a couple of videos to give you an idea of what the iPad version of GarageBand is all about:

GarageBand for iPad



Be sure to visit soon for an update - I'll include videos of my own.

Link: Learn more about Google +

I'm writing this post from a cruise ship, so I'll write more about Google's spin on social networking upon my return. In the meantime, take a look at the Google+ "Learn more about Google+"site!


I also plan on writing a few posts about tablets, as I'm a new user of an iPad 2. BTW, Garage Band on the iPad 2 is awesome.

An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System: "Tales of Things" allows people to record multimedia stories about objects, linked via QR or RIFD tags.

The following article about "Tales of Things", an interesting augmented memory app, was recently selected for review by Personal and Ubiquitous Computing:

An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System

Ralph Barthel, Kerstin Leder, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Angelina Karpovich, Martin de Jode, Chris Speed, University College London /  Loughborough University

Authors' bios

After watching the following videos and exploring the Tales of Things website, I am sure that this sort of technology will have many uses in education.  Wouldn't it be fun to have a "tales of things" project for a homework assignment?!

In the following video, Chris Speed discusses the Tales of Things project:

Tales of Things Beta: Connecting anything with any media, anywhere!

TOTeM website

Tales of Things Press Release (pdf)

Tales of Things iPhone iPad App

Tales of Things Android App

Below is a video of how an old Fisher Price teaching clock can become part of a "tale of things":

RELATED

Tales of Things: The Internet of "Old" Things:  Collecting Stories of Objects, Places, and Spaces (pdf)  Ralph Barthel, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Martin de Jode, Benjamin Blundell, CASA Centre For Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United Kingdom