Below are links to the first two weeks of pictures and videos. All of these were taken by either a student or myself using the Glass. (Except the pictures of individual students wearing the Glass. Those I took with my cell phone.)
After I demonstrated the Glass for each class, we usually had time for anywhere from 2 - 10 students get to try it out. They took a picture of a friend, plus a 10-second video interview. I've separated the albums by color group, so parents may ask their students which group they are in to find the pictures from their group.
What a wonderful day! I was excited going in to today - this would be totally uncharted territory for teaching. As not many people own the Glass, there is no information to Google about other teachers' experiences. Going down a black hole like that is exciting!
One of the first people I shared it with was Maria, a 2nd grade teacher, who had taken pictures of me that morning with her fancy camera.
Her video is entertaining!
Then, one of our assistant principals, looking very serious, got to try them out:
My lesson plan I had set up was this:
show a picture to generate interest
have students who have seen/heard about it tell the class what they know
explain exactly what the Glass is (still not telling them we have one!)
show the instructional videos from Google Glass
reveal that we have one and how we got it
demonstrate to the class
let 1-2 students try it (depending on time)
The lesson worked wonderfully. The interest was definitely generated at the beginning of class. Comments included:
"I want one!"
"Can we get one?"
"Where can I buy one?"
"Can you control it with your mind?"
and of course....
"How much is it?"
One kindergartener even told a classmate next to him that he had one at home! :-)
The videos were definitely the "hook". The hand-free features of the Glass truly are amazing. Lately, I have noticed it takes more and more to impress the students. Technology is such an integral part of their lives that they take it all as common-place. But Glass definitely impressed all of them.
I explained to them after the videos how I applied to the Explorer program and how very few people have one. I described the fundraising process and how both parents from our school and strangers across the country gave us money to buy it for our school. I told them that it might take a while, but that every student would get a chance to use them.
I then demonstrated the Glass for them. I was able to screencast, or project, what as on the Glass on the classroom projector for them. This took a lot of work between myself and my IT husband to figure out. For those of you who are interested, here's the details: (skip over the blue words if techy stuff makes your head hurt...)
The Glass connects via bluetooth or hotspot to your phone to access the Internet. It also can connect to Wi-fi that is open or password protected. It cannot connect to Wi-fi that needs a username and password.
In order to screencast, you must have a mobile device with the My Glass app on it. You can then use the phone to show people what you are seeing.
My issue was how to get what was on the mobile device on a projector so my whole class could see it.
Option #1: use a MHI to HDMI adapter on my phone and plug the HDMI cable straight into a projector. Turns out my Moto X is not MHI compatible.
Option #2: Use a document camera and put my phone under it. UGH. Not pretty, and so last decade.
Option #3: Use an iPad with the My Glass app on it and use AirPlay to mirror it to my Mac, which in turn projects on my big screen.
Option #3 turned out to be the way to go. However, to do all that, the Glass, the iPad, and the MacBook all have to be on the same network. Since I couldn't get Glass on the school network, I enabled a hotspot on my Moto X and used it as the wireless. If it sounds confusing, it is. I still have to slow down and think about it while I'm hooking it up each time.
Then, to top it off, the iOS app would not rotate with re-orientation of the iPad. So it showed up sideways on the MacBook screen. With no options in my MacBook display preferences to rotate, I had to do several Google searches. Turns out, there is a hidden key sequence that shows a rotation option in the display preferences. Can you say "tedious"?
Oh my, at this point they were SO excited. I was able to take a 10 second video, and upload it to my private YouTube channel all within 30 seconds without even touching the Glass - all with voice commands. I took photos and videos of them, did some sharing on Facebook and Google+. (all private and only visible to me) I also did some Google searches, showing them how it can do Math and give me directions.
This usually left enough time for me to let two students try out the Glass. I reminded them that every student would get a chance to use the Glass, just not today. I had the student sit in a chair and take a photo of the person in front of them. This alway got big laughs, as every other student would try to photobomb.
I then would let them take a video of the class. This usually resulted in mass chaos of students acting crazy.
After this class, I changed my strategy. I had them interview a person instead, asking everyone to stay in their spots while we were videoing.
They left class that day with most of them saying, "Ok, Glass..." Luckily Glass only hears the person wearing it. You have to get pretty close for it to hear someone besides the wearer!
I was able to video one of the students using Glass to take a video, and get the projection screen behind her so you can see the Glass screen on the projector:
Heres' a link to all the photos and videos from the first day. Most of them are pictures and videos the students took with the Glass. Several are ones I took with my phone, but you can tell which ones because they are photos of students wearing the Glass.
I took Glass out in public for the first time today. I was a little nervous, as I knew everyone would be looking at me! I got over that after the first few minutes, though. My husband and I went out to lunch at a restaurant in Denton called Rooster's.
On the way there, I played with the video feature:
Within 5 minutes of sitting down, I had someone come up to our table and ask how I liked Google Glass. I laughed, telling him that I had only had it about 24 hours, but so far I loved it. He laughed and returned to his table.
No one else approached us while we were at the restaurant. However, it did take TWO people to deliver our food to our table. (neither was our waiter) Each one carried one plate! They were both dressed in restaurant-manager style attire. This encounter made me giggle for the rest of the day.
We went and picked up the kids from Grandma's house, and she was very excited about trying them on! Grandpa wasn't interested...
Click below to see pictures and videos from day 2...
Day 3 was not as exciting, as Sundays at our house involve getting the family ready for the coming school week. (laundry, making lunches, etc.)
We went to church in the morning, but I didn't feel that was an appropriate place to wear them. I have been using my "where do I put my cell phone away" personal rules when it comes to the Glass. If I wouldn't feel comfortable pulling out my phone and using it, then I'm not using the Glass.
We did spend the afternoon at the park, where I took several videos and pictures to test the Glass with outdoor shots. I also practiced sharing the pictures with social media via Twitter and Facebook. I'm excited about the Twitter feature and letting the older students Tweet pictures. (with guidance, of course!)
My kids have enjoyed using it. Daniel, my 10-year-old, seems to find it intuitive. He loves Googling things like, "How do you say hello in Vietnamese?" Glass looks it up for him, puts the word on the screen, and pronounces it for him! Claire, my 6-year-old, likes to listen to "Let it Go" while putting the screen on things and giggling. "The screen is on your forehead!" Giggle giggle.
Click on the picture below to see videos and pictures from day 3.
I rolled over at 3:00 am and realized that today was the day Glass was being delivered! There was no going back to sleep at that point. I got up, got some coffee and spent the next few hours designing this blog. I knew that my students' parents would want to be a part of the wonderful project that they had helped fund, so I thought this would be a good way to keep them involved.
I checked the UPS tracking email and it told me that Glass had a guaranteed delivery of 10:30 am. That excited me, because even though I knew it was next-day delivery, the school closes at 3:30 and I was afraid they might come after that!
I can definitely say that karma was in the works yesterday. I teach 6 classes of technology, and one of them went on a field trip. Guess what time I normally taught them. Yup, you got it. 10:30! I spent the first two hours of my school day refreshing the shipping page, even though the email said, "Refreshing this page won't make Glass come faster." I thought that was cute on Google's part.
At 9:30, I refreshed the page one more time, and headed downstairs to grab my morning snack. I looped through the teachers lounge, headed towards the front office - just in case - and it was sitting on the receptionist's desk. She said, "You're lucky. He just dropped it off!" Lucky doesn't even begin to describe it.
Well, I had a class to teach. I texted my husband a picture of the box, and he commented that he was surprised it stayed in the box long enough for me to take a picture. Smart-aleck!
So it sat there for an hour. I went and grabbed my son, Daniel, who is a 5th grader where I teach. I would definitely say he was excited. I think he was vibrating. I had him video the "unboxing".
I let my son try them on first so I could get a picture to post. I told him he must be pretty special to get to try them on before I do! The look on his face is precious.
To get Glass to take a picture, you tilt your head up to wake it up, then say, "Ok, Glass, take a picture." Here's the first picture I took. Not real exciting, but it's still the first. I keep the lights off in my classroom, so that's why it's dark.
You can also add what's called a vignette to the picture. It adds what you were looking at on Glass when you took the picture.
I got the Glass hooked up to my phone. From there, it can use the phone's data. Luckily, my district provides Wi-fi for our personal devices, so I am not using up any plan data while at school. I then shared my first picture with my husband via Google+.
That was all I got done in the first hour. I then had to teach 5th grade, so I put Glass down to charge, as it has a reputation of having a short battery life.
Needless to say, I ate lunch in my classroom while playing with Glass. I used the video call function to talk to my husband while I ate. I was able to see him through the glass just like Facetime/Skype/Google hangout type applications. He, however, could not see me. He could only see what Glass saw. So he saw my desk, and my food.
One issue I encountered was the Glass kept trying to connect to the school's guest wireless. However, our guest wireless requires you to sign in on a webpage, which Glass cannot do. It would connect, but not get Internet. I finally figured out how to tell it to "forget" the guest network and just use my phone.
I was also able to share it with a parent who had been interested in it since I started my project. I am looking forward to putting some apps on it and letting him see what else it can do!
All week, my son and a friend had been helping me after school by putting away my laptops to charge. (I had wrist surgery, so picking up heavy things was not an option!) So, as a reward, I let the friend use the Glass after school. He took a video of Daniel, and then played it back while wearing the Glass. You get full color and sound, so it's pretty impressive. The look on his face when he played back the video made my day. The past three months have been hard work with the fundraising and getting approval, and his reaction made it all worthwhile. It's moments like that which solidify your decision to become a teacher.
Here's the video he took:
I sent a late day email inviting teachers to try it out after school. I didn't think I'd get any takers, as it was Friday. Friday afternoon at a school is often a ghost town. However, I had three teachers show up. We had a spectacular time with lots of belly laughs! One teacher was having trouble with the "look up to wake up" function, so she ended up looking a bit like a Saturday Night Live skit:
(Just a disclaimer here - this is a short portion of the SNL skit. If you go searching for the entire clip, I'd like to warn you there is inappropriate material in it.)
We then left school and I turned on the navigation to home to see how it worked. I had to use the earbud to hear the directions over the "Frozen" soundtrack being played in the van. Normally, the sound comes via bone-conduction vibrations from the Glass. But with the road noise and "Let it Go" I needed to use the plug in earbud.
I was unable to use the video provided with the navigation. I'm not sure if it was too bright, or the angle of the Glass was too high. But I could hear the directions. My husband called while I was driving, and I was able to read the directions to answer the phone call. He said he could hear me fine, but could tell I was using the Glass. He said there was just a bit of extra background noise.
I did use the "active shade" or clip on sunglasses that were provided. (I missed them in the unboxing video).
The Glass ran out of charge halfway home. I got home, plugged them in, and took an hour nap. (Remember what time I got up? 3:00 am!) My husband tried them out for a few minutes then we left to take the kids to Grandma's so we could go out on a date night. I left the Glass at home. I really hadn't had enough time to use it to explore it's features yet, and wanted to do that undistracted. I also knew that people (strangers) would want to try it, and I wasn't ready for that yet. I hadn't gotten to use it myself much yet!
Here's all the pictures that were taken with Glass the first day. If they seem random, they are. It was people just trying to figure out how to take a picture!
My goal for today is to explore all the features, and get more comfortable using it. I also am going to sit down and plan out my week and how I am going to introduce it to the students. It's going to take a while to let all 650 students try them on! I might go out in public today wearing them. I'm not sure yet. A quick trip to Wal-Mart should prove pretty interesting!
