1. Earlier this month, fifty Googlers from offices spanning North America to Zurich geared up to take on SIGGRAPH 2011, the world's premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques. Thousands of creative professionals converged August 7-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia to participate in the five-day interdisciplinary educational experience.

    Several members of Google’s technical staff appeared on panels and talks. Paul Strauss led the “Out of Core” session that featured Google Body: an intuitive 3D context for learning and discussing human anatomy on a browser, smartphone or tablet. Steve Seitz and Google intern Rahul Garg presented their paper Exploring Photobios, which details a method for generating face animations from large image collections of the same person by computing an optimized, aligned subsequence. It’s the basis for the Face Movie feature in Picasa Web Albums. Their paper made a key contribution to the field in proving why the cross dissolve produces a strong motion effect.

    With the conference theme “Make it Home,” we invited attendees to be our guests in our living room at SIGGRAPH. Many sat by the fireplace to chat with Google engineers and designers as well as watch demos showcasing WebGL in Chrome, Picnik, Google+, 3D Warehouse and Sketchup. Those interested in more action took up challenges in SVNGR: 443 attendees completed 4,924 challenges to snag Google goodies, from Android collectible dolls, to t-shirts, to a Samsung Galaxy tablet.

    We’re looking forward to fireside chats with many more members of the technical community at our future events and conferences.



    Google making the creative minds of the computer graphics
    community feel at home at SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver, B.C.

    Posted by the Industry Outreach team
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  2. Cross-posted with the Research Blog

    The Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) were held in Miami, Florida, this year. Nearly 5,000 participants from academia and industry came to present and discuss the latest in statistical research, methodology, and applications. Similar to previous years, several Googlers shared expertise in large-scale experimental design and implementation, statistical inference with massive datasets and forecasting, data mining, parallel computing, and much more.

    Our session "Statistics: The Secret Weapon of Successful Web Giants" attracted over one hundred people; surprising for an 8:30 AM session! Revolution Analytics reviewed this in their official blog post "How Google uses R to make online advertising more effective"

    The following talks were given by Googlers at JSM 2011. Please check the upcoming Proceedings of the JSM 2011 for the full papers.

    Google has participated at JSM each year since 2004. We have been increasing our involvement significantly by providing sponsorship, organizing and giving talks at sessions and roundtables, teaching courses and workshops, hosting a booth with new Google products demo, submitting posters, and more. This year Googlers participated in sessions sponsored by ASA sections for Statistical Learning and Data Mining, Statistics and Marketing, Statistical Computing, Bayesian Statistical Science , Health Policy Statistics, Statistical Graphics, Quality and Productivity, Physical and Engineering Sciences, and Statistical Education.

    We also hosted the Google faculty reception, which was well-attended by faculty and their promising students. Google hires a growing number of statisticians and we were happy to participate in JSM again this year. People had a chance to talk to Googlers, ask about working here, encounter elements of Google culture (good food! T-shirts! 3D puzzles!), meet old and make new friends, and just have fun!

    Thanks to everyone that presented, attended, or otherwise engaged with the statistical community at JSM this year. We’re looking forward to seeing you in San Diego next year.

    Posted by Marianna Dizik, Statistician
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  3. Posted by Nina Kim Schultz, Google Education Research

    Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog

    School may still be out for summer, but teachers remain hard at work. This week, we hosted Google’s inaugural Faculty Institute at our Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. The three-day event was created for esteemed faculty from schools of education and math and science to explore teaching paradigms that leverage technology in K-12 classrooms. Selected via a rigorous nomination and application process, the 39 faculty members hail from 19 California State Universities (CSUs), as well as Stanford and UC Berkeley, and teach high school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) teachers currently getting their teaching credentials. CSU programs credential 60 percent of California’s teachers—or 10 percent of all U.S. K-12 teachers—and one CSU campus alone can credential around 1,000 new teachers in a year. The purpose of gathering together at the Institute was to ensure our teachers’ teachers have the support they need to help educators adjust to a changing landscape.

    There is so much technology available to educators today, but unless they learn how to use it effectively, it does little to change what is happening in our classrooms. Without the right training and inspiration, interactive displays become merely expensive projection screens, and laptops simply replace paper rather than shifting the way teachers teach and students learn. Although the possibilities for technology use in schools are endless, teacher preparation for the 21st century classroom also has many constraints. For example: beyond the expense involved, there’s the time it costs educators to match a technological innovation to the improvement of pedagogy and curriculum; there’s a distinct shift in thinking that needs to take place to change classrooms; and there’s an essential challenge to help teachers develop the dispositions and confidence to be lifelong evaluators, learners and teachers of technology, instead of continuing to rely on traditional skill sets that will soon be outdated.

    The Institute featured keynote addresses from respected professors from Stanford and Berkeley, case studies from distinguished high school teachers from across California, hands-on technology workshops with a variety of Google and non-Google tools, and panels with professionals in the tech-education industry. Notable guests included representatives from Teach for AmericaThe New Teacher Project, the Department of Education and Edutopia. Topics covered the ability to distinguish learning paths, how to use technology to transform classrooms into project-based, collaborative spaces and how to utilize a more interactive teaching style rather than the traditional lecture model.

    On the last day of the Institute, faculty members were invited to submit grant proposals to scale best practices outside of the meeting. Deans of the participating universities will convene at the end of the month to further brainstorm ways to scale new ideas in teacher preparation programs. Congratulations to all of the faculty members who were accepted into the inaugural Institute, and thank you for all that you do to help bring technology and new ways of thinking into the classroom.

    This program is a part of Google’s continued commitment to supporting STEM education. Details on our other programs can be found on www.google.com/education.
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