Google sets its employees free to collaborate with one another on ANY good purpose: they call these collaborations their “10 percent” projects, since every Google employee from salesman to CEO in encouraged to dedicate 10 percent of their Google time to such collaborations. I’ve been the direct beneficiary of one such “10 percent” project, the Google Certified Teacher community. Google knows that if you want a creative and collaborative workforce you’ve got to encourage creativity and collaboration. Creativity and collaboration are hallmarks of the 21st Century workforce: you’re going to like this.
Here’s one of Google’s latest ventures: the Google Art Project. (I haven’t confirmed that this is a 10 percent project.) Notice (with some help from the highlighted boxes above) that you can choose which museum to visit and which artworks to view within that museum; you can navigate through the museum; you can save your favorites, etc, when you sign in; and you can even add your own content–should you have a museum you’d like to share online. So go explore the museums of the world, from your laptop or your smartphone. This is technology in service of the arts.
Every student in Michiana (and everywhere else) can visit the world’s greatest museums, and they should all know it. More than this, every student should believe that they can visit anywhere they like, online. The rule of thumb for the new web is that if you can think of the service you wish existed, it already does exist, it’s free, and you can successfully search for it in 30 seconds. Try it.