TTT#332 Gooru for Learning with Xenia Shih, Timothy Burke, and Jody Donovan - plus Leah Jensen and Gail Desler 01.16.13

Find out more about Gooru http://goorulearning.org on this episode of TTT. This is the first in a series of webcasts in which we'll focus on Gooru, asking: How do you teach with Gooru? We'll be talking with teachers who use Gooru in their classrooms, asking them to share best practices and exchange ideas. And we'll dialogue with the Gooru team around what might be done to improve Gooru for all of us?

If you're new to Gooru, here are three places to start your inquiries:

Gooru Learning itself has a pedigree that is worth considering. Gooru is developed by Ednovo, the nonprofit education startup founded by Prasad Ram. Ram has a rich history in Silicon Valley, including work at Xerox PARC, Yahoo! and Google. While Director of Engineering for Google Research, Ram developed the concept for using search technology to discover educational content. Ram decided to leave Google in January 2011 and pursue this concept. Ram has started an education focused non-profit startup called Ednovo, which is going to build upon Gooru, a free web based education solution that was begun as a ’20% effort’ at Google, and piloted in India with 25 classrooms and 1000 students. Gooru allows teachers to use openly licensed web resources, find lesson plans on all subjects and topics and then customize it to their specific needs, with rich multimedia content including videos, slides, and simulations.

So, this morning, I went to Gooru to poke around a bit and remember what it is about. When I had been there last, the site had recently launched and I wasn’t quite sure what they were up to. There didn’t seem to be a lot of content. Now I understand. The site is another way to help students streamline their research queries (sort of like Instagrok, which I use) and for teachers to build up “collections” of resources that can be shared. I like the overall feel of the site — it takes a few minutes to get a sense of what to do, but once you understand it, you will see there are powerful paths to follow.

Every day teachers and students scour the web to find the best resources to help them learn or teach, pulling from different resources scattered all over the Internet--but what if you could find and organize all the best web resources in one place? With Gooru, you can. Watch NASA videos about solar flares, play interactive games on PBS.com that teach about friction, and take quizzes on equations from Khan Academy. We aggregate the best of the web, giving you high-quality and free multimedia resources within seconds, so you can spend more time studying, and less time searching. When you find resources you love, you can then organize them into a playlist called a collection.

You might also find out what you need to know to get started by listening to our inspiring guests for this episode of TTT:

Paul Allison's profile photomonika hardy's profile photoChris Sloan's profile photo
Paul Allison, Monika Hardy, and Chris Sloan
Xenia Shih's profile photoTimothy Burke's profile photoJody Donovan's profile photo
host Xenia Shih, Timothy Burke, and Jody Donovan from Gooru
Leah Jensen's profile photoGail Desler's profile photo
along with two amazing California teachers, Leah Jensen and Gail Desler.

Enjoy!


Click Read more to see the chat that was happening during this live webcast and some important links to resources.


 
 
Hover over the Search description on this Features Breakdown page and walk through the tutorial:http://about.goorulearning.org/index.php/features/feature-breakdown
 
Learn about how the "Add it" tool can help you organize and curate resources for later use in creating collections: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8bMO1pWmh3U
 
Join our Teacher Community on LinkedIn to continue the discussion of how to best use Gooru in your classroom: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Teaching-Gooru-4732663
 
http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/e5f5e0a0-c9e0-4c6e-a9f9-de53314c7525/play
 
Chris Sloan: http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/7b890a94-a14f-45da-8a9f-4c740d5d0f33/play
 

January 16, 2013

20:56Peggy George: Hi Paul. Looking forward to this session about Gooru :-)
21:01Paul Allison: Hi Peggy!
21:01Peggy George: seeing the stream now :-)
21:02Peggy George: 4th grade was my favorite grade to teach too :-)
21:02karen (@kfasimpaur): Greetings, all.
21:03Gail Desler: heading over to the hangout
21:03Xenia Shih: Hi, all!
21:03Peggy George: family night :-)
21:04Peggy George: Hi Gail.
21:04Peggy George: I'm here to learn about Gooru so I'll just watch the stream.
21:04Xenia Shih: www.goorulearning.org
21:05Peggy George: Hi Xenia. I clicked on your linkedin link and was going to follow you but I didn't know your email address.
21:06Chris Sloan: The link is in the Titan pad on the left Gail
21:06Peggy George: Hi Chris :-) Happy New Year!
21:07Peggy George: Hi Karen! Welcome!
21:07karen (@kfasimpaur): Hi, Peggy. Hi, Chris.
21:07Peggy George: I love the connected world!!! :-)
21:08Peggy George: great introduction!!
21:08Peggy George: all of the TTT sessions are lively chats :-)
21:09Chris Sloan: Hi Peggy and Karen, you're both in Arizona right?
21:09Peggy George: yes :-)
21:09karen (@kfasimpaur): yes
21:10Peggy George: How exciting to have the whole gooru team with us!
21:15karen (@kfasimpaur): Q: Can you tell who curated and assembled each collection?
21:17karen (@kfasimpaur): Another question...is there a way to see the license of each asset?
21:18Peggy George: what a user-friendly alternative to textbooks for creating your own learning resources!
21:19Peggy George: reminds me a bit of Discovery Ed but this is free and open source
21:19Chris Sloan: Karen, there's room in the Hangout if you want to ask those questions
21:20Peggy George: thanks for adding the links to the Titanpad! Is that you Xenia?
21:22jeffmason: OER Commons?
21:24Xenia Shih: @Karen: yes, each collection shows the creator's username and profile photo
21:25Xenia Shih: @Peggy Tim was adding links, but I have some to add as well!
21:25Peggy George: very helpful! thanks!
21:25Chris Sloan: Jeff are you asking what OER Commons is?
21:26jeffmason: some similarities with gooru
21:26karen (@kfasimpaur): OER Commons is a search engine for OER...but no real way to curate/assemble collections like Gooru
21:26karen (@kfasimpaur): Thx, Xenia. Does the username have any info associated with it and/or can you tell which are Gooru-staff assembled?
21:27Xenia Shih: At this time, we don't distinguish between Gooru staff-created collections and user-created collections
21:28Xenia Shih: Would that be a feature that would be helpful for you?
21:30karen (@kfasimpaur): I think so. A lot of discovery engines are working on how to show users + accumulated value of collections by different users ("whuffie")
21:30karen (@kfasimpaur): License info of indiv assets would be #1 thing I'd like to see though.
21:30Chris Sloan:http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/e5f5e0a0-c9e0-4c6e-a9f9-de53314c7525/play
21:30Paul Allison:http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/e5f5e0a0-c9e0-4c6e-a9f9-de53314c7525/play
21:31Xenia Shih: @Karen interesting feedback, thanks! I'll be sure to pass it on to the team.
21:34Peggy George: how would gooru compare to something like findingdulcinea and sweetsearch?
21:36Peggy George: also comparison with PBS Learning Media?http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/
21:37Peggy George: love the use of primary sources
21:41Xenia Shih: Gooru follows more of a "wikipedia" model in which experts and users passionate about specific topics (global warming, WWII, etc.) can share their knowledge with other Gooru users around the world
21:41Xenia Shih: That is done through Collections, which anyone can create
21:41Xenia Shih: And that is on top of our Search functionality
21:42Tim Burke:http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/e5f5e0a0-c9e0-4c6e-a9f9-de53314c7525/play
21:42Xenia Shih: We're also working on building out our quizzes (assessment) functionality, and we have just made an entrance into the app marketplace with our iPad app
21:42Xenia Shih: So Gooru will provide a complete suite of educational tools for teachers and students
21:42karen (@kfasimpaur): Paul, there was a really good piece on the economics of marijuana legalization on NPR a coupel weeks ago.
21:44Chris Sloan:http://www.goorulearning.org/gooru/index.g#!/collection/7b890a94-a14f-45da-8a9f-4c740d5d0f33/play
21:46Peggy George: I really like the concept of collections that anyone can create!
21:56Peggy George: is there a link for the goorubric?
21:58Peggy George: what was the teacher's name who created the goorubric?
21:59Xenia Shih: Heidi Haugen
21:59Peggy George: thanks :-)
21:59Tim Burke: I will touch base with Heidi before sharing it
21:59Peggy George: thanks Tim!
21:59Tim Burke: Check out the great things Jack West, Ben Canning, and Allison Stafford are doing with blended learning using Gooru collections in their Physics classes:https://sites.google.com/site/phyzcan/conceptual-physics-home/cp-gooru-collections
22:00Peggy George: thanks Tim-I'll check those out :-)
22:04Peggy George: I would love to have the Gooru team come and present this amazing resource on Classroom 2.0 LIVE sometime! Our participants would love it!
22:07karen (@kfasimpaur): Thanks, everyone.
22:08Peggy George: fantastic conversation! Thank you all! Gooru is a fantastic resource!
22:08Tim Burke: Check out our teaching community on LinkedIn:http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Teaching-Gooru-4732663?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
22:09Peggy George: Just joined tonight :-)
22:10Xenia Shih: Fabulous! Thanks Peggy
22:10Peggy George: Thanks for sharing your contact info Xenia. I'm going to contact you about a show on Classroom 2.0 LIVE. :-)
22:10Peggy George: http://live.classroom20.com
22:10Xenia Shih: Would love to chat about that :) [email protected]
22:10Peggy George: thanks!!!