You have already heard about Google Glass and what it may offer education, no doubt. Google's magic tech visor has yet to become commercially available to the general public, but participants in its Explorer program who managed to buy earlier models in the interests of research already have them on and out in the wild.
Straight from the eyes of those testers, as well as arm-chair trend-callers, here are five examples of ways Google Glass may one day be of use to classrooms and the world of education broadly:
1. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
Research teams could stay visually connected, despite splitting up into lab, library and field teams, as Joe Robertson points out writing for The Kansas City Star. Each Google Glass set would effectively be a second or third set of eyes for someone comparing live feeds with their own assignment or research, and this type of enhanced collaboration could be appreciated at the K-12 or higher ed level. Wherever science is getting picked apart in multiple locations, Google Glass could lend a hand.
2. LEARN STUDENTS' NAMES
Here's a use that any teacher or higher ed faculty member can appreciate. Chaim Cohen, a New Jersey high school computer science teacher who is currently developing for Glass, wants to put together an application for learning students names.
“I don’t remember all the names of my students during the first weeks of school,” Cohen said, according to a report published by The Global Jewish News Source. “I want to be able to look at them and have their names overlapped on top.”
Sound like something you might be interested in?
3. SHOW THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER TO PHYSICS STUDENTS
Explorer and physic instructor Andrew Vanden Heuvel from Grand Rapids, Mich., became one of the Google Glass Explorer program's most Internet-famous participants by taking his headset on the road (and across an ocean) to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) research facility in Switzerland to check out its Large Hadron Collider. Here's a video of what he shared with his students back in the states.
4. OTHER VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Vanden Heuvel has more where that came from, too. His AGL Initiatives site shows off other such remote teaching exercises that he has conducted, including lessons on shower physics, unstable rotation and standing waves.
5. FLIP A CLASSROOM
Feel like making some of your own videos and integrating them into a flipped learning experience for your students? Edudemic's Google Glass teacher's guide recommends using Glass in tandem with the "TED-Ed flip machine." It could be a step up from the hand-operated hardware you're using now.
Would you like to see more education news like this in your inbox on a daily basis? Subscribe to our Education Dive email newsletter! You may also want to read Education Dive's look at 10 iPad competitors for school tech budgets.