Google Goggles: A Context-Aware App Available NOW for Classrooms

Elliot: Have you heard about Google Goggles?
Cathie:  No, not yet, but I bet I will shortly.
Elliot: Ha Ha Ho Ho. This is truly COOOOOL technology.
Cathie: That’s code language for “it doesn’t quite work yet, so users beware.”
Elliot: You HAVE used it, then!
Cathie: My turn: Ha Ha Ho Ho.
Elliot: But listen.  On your cellphone, you can take a picture of some landmark or object in your environment that you wish to have more information about and send it to Google.
Cathie: Cellphone or smartphone? Do you need a dataplan?
Elliot: Good questions. Let me sidestep them for now.
Cathie: You and details just don’t mix.
Elliot: I am going to BUST; I must tell you about Goggles!! For the next 45 seconds, no questions, pretty please?
Cathie: <patient, adult smile on lips; nod of head indicating that I should continue>
Elliot: So the picture you just sent to Google from your cellphone camera is matched against Google’s Google-sized database of pictures for a match. Once a match is found…
Cathie: …IF a match is found…
Elliot:… Ok, IF a match is found, Google comes back with all sorts of info about what you are seeing. For example …
Cathie: If you took a picture of the Empire State Building, Google would tell you who built it, when, and other factoids about the Empire State Building. What if you sent Goggles a picture of a leaf?
Elliot: That was 46 seconds of blissful silence; thank you. Perhaps Google Goggles…
Cathie: …say Google Goggles 10 times fast…
Elliot: My, my you are feisty this morning; you must have gotten more than your usual 4 hours of sleep!
Cathie: No, less.
Elliot: I know, there is soooo much to do, there is no time to sleep!
Cathie: I won’t interrupt anymore – well, at least not again in this blog posting
Elliot: Merci. So Google will try to identify the tree type to which the leaf belongs.
Cathie: Ah, I have been reading about an emerging field of mobile computer applications that are “context-aware” – clearly, Google Goggles is an example of such an application.
Elliot: Yes!! Goggles is the intermediary between an individual …
Cathie: … or group of individuals who are cooperating,
Elliot: … and the immediately surrounding physical world.  By being “context-aware” the mobile application can be a more informed partner to an individual or group rather than behaving like a brick.
Cathie: The classroom application of Goggles boggles the mind.
Elliot: Sweet alliteration, Ms Schoolmarm; do carry on, please!
Cathie: My “leaf question” earlier in the blog was me already thinking about school uses. On field trips, the opportunities afforded by Goggles go without saying. In the classroom, a student could take a picture of an image in a textbook to get more up-to-date info from Google; a student group could send a picture of their science experiment set up to Goggles and access the Internet’s collected wisdom surrounding that experiment. A picture is worth a thousand words; some queries are better “said” visually, in fact.
Elliot: I have read where the Goggles sort of application is referred to as “augmented reality.”
Cathie: I can see how that name applies, but I like your term, “context-aware” better.
Elliot: Yes, “context-aware” more clearly says what function, what opportunity, the mobile application offers. And “context-aware” is much less pretentious than “augmented reality.”
Cathie: We must make a final point – such applications as Goggles would never have been developed for a desktop computer. One might put “context-aware” applications on a laptop, but five to seven pound laptops, as we have argued in the past, are transportable computers, not truly mobile computers.
Elliot: The mobileness of the cellphone is what prompted the invention of this new category of software applications.
Cathie: “Augmented reality” may not be the only thing that is pretentious in this blog posting.
Elliot: I get the point – but I am a professor; I am paid to profess!
Cathie: And stop at the end a lecture.
Elliot: Ahem, this is Cathie and Elliot signing off of their District Administration Blog “Tech Disruptions” – catch you all on rebound.