I am honestly very intrigued by the idea of the Google Glass project. As a matter of fact, I think I would start using them today — in whatever for they are delivered in. I’ve been enjoying the videos that have been released up until this point, but the one contained in this The Verge piece is really cool as it dives behind the scenes and lets you hear from members of the development team. I wonder if there will be any in the wild at sxsw in a couple of weeks?

http://youtu.be/v1uyQZNg2vE

But what’s it actually like to have Glass on? To use it when you’re walking around? Well, it’s kind of awesome. Think of it this way — if you get a text message or have an incoming call when you’re walking down a busy street, there are something like two or three things you have to do before you can deal with that situation. Most of them involve you completely taking your attention off of your task at hand: walking down the street. With Glass, that information just appears to you, in your line of sight, ready for you to take action on. And taking that action is little more than touching the side of Glass or tilting your head up — nothing that would take you away from your main task of not running into people.

I am wondering what this means for education? I talked to a student the other day who is working to have a new set of teaching guidelines released in here college here at Penn State that explicitly allows students to use mobile devices in glass (phones and tablets) for work. It seems as though there are enough faculty who are banning them that she wants the Dean to make a real statement about the positive affordances. But with Glass, all bets are off. The ability to snap quick pictures of slides, shoot short videos of demonstrations, or find information instantly all without actually having to take out a device is quite interesting. I’m looking forward to it!