Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my pal Marcia has discovered that the new browser Google Chrome is for Windows only.  I’ve only tried it on Vista, but I haven’t had any problems.

And I’ve heard several disappointed folks discuss that the Delicious bookmarking tools aren’t Chrome compatible yet.  I didn’t quite realize how Delicious-addicted I had become until I couldn’t use it with Chrome.Â

Have you heard about Google’s new beta browser with built-in search engine, Google Chrome? I’ve just installed it.  I find it faster than Firefox or Internet Explorer, and I like how small the browser “frame” is around the Web content.  I must be getting old, because I also like how the URL is displayed in a nice big font, with the domain name (e.g., schoollibrarymedia.com) in black type and the rest of the URL grayed out.  Oh, think of what that simple step does for helping students SEE the domain and use it for an initial evaluation of a Web site.I haven’t taken all of the features for a spin yet (for example, I haven’t discovered yet if I can get my Delicious bookmark buttons installed on it), but it feels refreshing.  I like that the majority of my screen space is now filled with content and not toolbars, for example.  I haven’t used it enough to see how Google Chrome’s home page will, as shown above, create what is essentially a customized page with links and screenshots of my most-visited sites.  Chrome’s visually streamlined aesthetic reflects what we’ve come to expect from Google, but the real star of Chrome is what’s going on behind the scenes.  I’m not a programming whiz, so I’ll leave the explanation to the experts. Suffice it to say, Chrome was designed to take up less visual space, crash less frequently, and get you where you’re going more quickly.  T.H.E. Journal had a great article about Chrome, and Google walks you through their thinking and design process in a cool online graphic novel that features the voices of the Google Chrome team.It’s such a savvy idea — to let Google employees tell users why they put in the features they did and to explain the technology hiding beneath the skin of Chrome.  When is the last time a company showed you their process? Or, as we edufolk like to call it, their metacognition? And, to keep it fun to read, put it into a nontraditional format? What a great model for us to think about.  The Chrome project also reminds me of what I read about in The Google Story - that Google employees get to spend 20% of their work week (that’s a WHOLE DAY if you work a five-day work week) pursuing a project that is personally rewarding to them.  No wonder they have such loyalty.  Imagine how education would be turned on its head if we had 20% of our time for experimenting and networking and thinking about the Big Questions of student learning?  How could American education explode with creativity and depth? Oh, this reverie is making me positively dizzy.  How is Chrome working for you? Image: Google Chrome 

 I recently read Ying Chang Compestine’s Revolution is Not a Dinner Party, a gripping semi-autobiographical YA novel about the daughter of a Western-trained doctor and an Eastern-trained doctor.  They live an upper middle-class life but become victims of China’s 1970s Cultural Revolution.  Anything representing artistic or academic endeavor was sublimated for a glorified peasant life.  Those in the protagonist’s world are repeatedly, often brutally humiliated by those in the Communist partywho are promoting an anti-intellectual, anti-Western perspective.  I don’t want to say more because this really is one of those books that you will read in a single sitting.

Perhaps it was subliminal thinking that I picked up this book just as the Beijing Olympics were wrapping up.  Wow - what a feat of art the Opening Ceremony was! ART.  From a celebration of ancient brush painting to modern choreography, it was about ART.How does a nation that tried to annihilate artistic and intellectual growth rebuild into a powerhouse in a span of less than 40 years? This is a question that I never heard discussed during Olympic commentary.  (OK, I was on deadline for a book manuscript, so I could be at fault here.)

Bring this into library reserach and the ubiquitous “country reports,” in which students are often asked to identify a country’s major historical points: in this case, China’s Cultural Revolution and its 2008 Olympic showcase.  How often do we ask students to examine the years in between? The path that took a nation from one stage to another? But isn’t that where the real learning is? Isn’t that the kind of research that gives students the intellectual rigor to face challenges in the future?

Related standards:

1.1.7 Make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.

1.2.1 Display initiative and engagement by posing questions and investigating the answers beyond the collection of superficial facts. 1.3.2 Seek divergent perspectives during information gathering and assessment.      

Image: Amazon.com