I guess it’d be a good thing if I slapped together a few of my best posts and put them on a page for teachers. Then, I’d probably let everyone know that I’ve created a great new resource for teachers, one with an exclusive newsletter and very special stuff, stuff that I’ve collected from other places and put here, in this one special place. Then, I could spend some money on teachers and bring them together to look at all the stuff that I created relabeled just for them. They’d probably go nuts about that. You know how we teachers like free stuff.
That’d be pretty cool, huh?
Seriously, though. There’s always someone trying to make a dollar off of a teacher or a classroom. Sometimes that’s an okay thing, because they’ve got a product that helps me do something that I want to do. Other times, that’s no good, because they’re poor salespeople — they want to sell me something that I don’t really need, or won’t actually do something for the benefit of my students.
Google, like lots of other vendors and merchants and innovative-type folks, has created some amazing stuff, and hopefully, will be involved in fascinatingly complex innovations in the future.
But just because they’ve slapped "for teachers" on their cool stuff doesn’t suddenly mean that they’ve created vast new resources that will help me, or anyone else, do our jobs better. What they’ve actually done, or so it seems to me, is that they’ve "given permission" for people to start using those tools in the classroom.
We shouldn’t need permission. We shouldn’t be so locked into paradigms and routines that when something interesting, fascinating, or just downright useful come along, we wait until we’re told it’s "okay" to use that tool in our schools.
I’m hopeful, though, that the creation of Google for Educators can eventually lead to a meaningful conversation about how business can help teachers in mutually beneficial ways. The folks at Discovery Education, when they’re not flinging book bags and projectors at teachers, are doing some interesting and meaningful work. I don’t mean to pick on these two companies, or set them up as diametrically opposed. Both have potential, both are selling products. There are other corporate partnerships that work, too. Plenty that don’t.
Maybe Google for Educators is the next big thing. I just haven’t seen it yet.
PS — Bill and Will, aside from rhyming, are two smart folks who aren’t waiting for permission from anyone. Their conversation about open source vs. corporate creation is wrapped up in my still cold-riddled brain as I think about this topic.
I just couldn’t figure out a witty way to work them into this post. I’m also thinking of this comment, which I will address as the cold begins to give up brain control:
I checked out your link to I Love
Bees. Have you ever read the book Born to Buy by Juliet Schor. Schor
discusses these marketing campaigns to children which I found
troubling. The wiki you provided said I Love Bees was part of a viral
marketing campaign for Halo 2.What’s Cathy’s Book trying to sell?
The short answer to ‘s question is CoverGirl. The longer answer is whether or not corporate sponsorship that leads to an interesting opportunity for learning is always a bad thing. The book and some clever, or highly concerning, depending on your personal opinion, has started a bit of a conversation about product placement in books. A better question is are they really selling us anything at all? Does placing a product in a book make a meaningful marketing difference? Does having a corporate connection necessarily make for a "dirty" experience, one that isn’t as good or pure or righteous or holy as one that would involve an open source tool? I don’t mean to trivialize the question — it’s a really important one that has implications for Google for Educators just as much as it does for any other corporate connection to an educational initiative or vice versa.
I don’t know the answers yet, but I intend to speak with my students about it when we meet for book club tomorrow.
This is definitely first draft thinking. Be gentle.
I’m confused Bud. Are you implying that there are thousands of educators our there that haven’t been using Google’s tools and applications because they weren’t sure if they were legal? I’ve never been one to hold back on the use of ANY free tool in my classroom, but I have heard that some conference presentations and resources on Google Earth have been questioned as to their legality before being proved it was okay to use in an educational setting.
As for your complaint about the “relabeling” of resources, I’m with you on the commercial aspect of it. I really despise websites that simply categorize and sort websites, then make you pay for them. Granted, there are many sites that only ask for donations to provide advertisement free versions (enchanted learning), but some sites that simply replicate other content that can be found elsewhere on the web for free (brainpop) makes you wonder.
As for Google, even if what they’ve labeled as “for teachers” isn’t exactly geared towards teachers, they’ve been doing it all for free (well, you do have to view those tiny Google Ads on the sidebar), and are attempting to show educators that the Google Earth forums and other tools they have aren’t just for the techie-minded crowd. Google Docs (formerly Google Spreadsheets and Wordly) are some powerful tools for online collaboration, and as far as I know, I’m the only one in my school (besides the IT people) that knows about the tools. Perhaps by simply adding the words “for educators” may start to help more teachers open their eyes with what’s possible .
I was going to comment here, but I rambled on for so long (my lunch period and then some), I made it a blog entry of my own instead.