Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

The Google gang just keeps rolling along. Now they’ve rolled out an intriguing online game with the potential to do a little educating as it entertains. Try not to waste too much time when you check it out to see if it has potential for any of your students. This one’s on Content & Curriculum.

Google Image Labeler (online resource) I suspect that one of the reasons that Google has been so successful is that they encourage their software developers to play as they develop their products. Now they’ve come up with a game for all of us to play. If we choose to join in and play, we’ll be helping Google to refine its product. Google makes no bones about using the game to “…improve the relevance of image search results for users…”.

The game is a simple matching game where you and an unkown partner somewhere on the web are presented simultaneously with an image. Both players then have the opportunity to type a label for the image. Whenever there is a match, you score 100 points, and a new image is presented. The object is to see how many points you and your partner can score in 90 seconds. (So far, I’ve managed no more than 700 points!)

There really is educational potential in this game. Steve Brooks has helpfully spelled out some creative lesson ideas in Edugadget, his wonderful blog where he offers “plain-talking technology reviews for teachers.”