Ready to reach the stars?

The American multinational corporation Google, has launched a new project that will allow users travel through the space like every kid has always imagine. This experiment has been called “100.000 Stars”, and the reason for this name is really simple: with help from NASA, the European Space Agency and other sources alongside the technology used in Chrome, Google’s creative lab is creating a magnificent display of the one hundred thousand nearest stars in relation to our Sun.

 And that’s not everything of course, apart from the possibility of zooming in or out the site, or literally navigate through our cosmos, with the assistance of the Virtual Encyclopedia Wikipedia, users are able to acquire information about every star shown on the display, and get a digital image of the celestial body. The site starts with a short explanation of itself, and then the user will gain full control of it; either he could begin a followed tour through the site or just explore our part of universe by himself, like a real astronomer could do.

This last application of Google join the vast group of services that the successful corporation had integrated into our daily life – Gmail, Chrome, Google Maps, Google+, among others -, but after using for a few minutes, you’ll start realizing that more than a service, is a beautiful tool that could not only amaze or entertain, but also enlighten the young minds of future scientists.

Google Docs: the current trend toward group work at university

Personally, I am not a follower of group activities; especially, those which are asked to be done after our class time since it is always a difficult duty to schedule meeting with other people outside the lecture room due to the different timetables. Particularly in a university context where most of the participants study and probably do something else apart from it. 

Fortunately, now it is not a headache any more since the Net is offering us a wide variety of tools to carry out those tedious assignments at home. Namely, Google Docs. It is a freeware that gives us the opportunity to do our  pending class work on-line.

With that application, it is possible to create different documents that the rest of our classmates can edit simultaneously or afterwards. So it is not necessary that we waste our free time getting together. For all those reasons, this program is getting more and more popular among students.

 In this sense, I would dare to say since this Google product was launched in 2006; almost nobody is doing group activities in the more traditional way: students do not gather to work face-to-face. On the contrary, they all enter the web page at different times preventing the exchange of ideas and a deep discussion of them. In short, the work is carried out as it were an individual one. 

To sum up, it is important to mention that Google Docs' usefulness is out of debate; the problem is that we overuse it, and we have forgotten that our professors included group job in their teaching programs due to the benefits behind it; in fact, it is expected that through this way of working, learns could be able to develop not only cognitive but also social/interpersonal skills.


Taking all the factors exposed above into account, could it be appropriate we labelled that as group work?




As we cannot deny the usefulness of this application; now I am going to show you a video where you are going to find the guidelines to use Google Docs.


In the video, it is possible for us to see how Google Docs works, and all the opportunities this tool offers its users., in terms of types of documents you can create and all the pre- designed patterns available. 

Seeing What is Not There

Imagine yourself walking down the street, and as you advance many notifications pop up in front of your eyes. They tell you names of restaurants, how far away your friends are, or ask if you want to take a video recording of what is happening in front of you.

This may be reality in a couple of months as Google finishes work on “Project Glass”. The project is a set of glasses that has no lenses at all, just a camera and a screen. They described this product as an “augmented reality” or a “wearable computer”.

“Project Glass* sets up a small video screen set in front on the right eye, as well a a little speaker and microphone near the right ear. This device will probably work with a cellphone that will be connected by bluetooth and you can share all this information through the different social networks.

Technology is advancing quickly these days; maybe this new invention will depose Apple’s vice-grip on novel technology. However, there is more to consider than just the purchasing desires of virtual reality geeks around the world. While this kind of technology may be very useful, it also brings up the question Are we isolating ourselves too much? How much virtual reality and digitalization of life is too much? Are we destroying the real-life connections that hold our societies together?

I'd like you to watch this video, and tell me if you are willing to live in a society as the video shows.