iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

How much do you know about this year’s top search trends?

Test your knowledge of Google Search in 2018 by taking the new ‘Game of the Year’ quiz.

Every year Google releases a roundup of top search trends, but this is the first time the company has developed a game based on search data.

The way it works is simple:

Answer a series of questions about this year’s trending searches
Collect points for correct answers
Unlock harder questions by progressing through the game
A special bonus round at the end ups the difficulty even more
After three wrong answers, it’s game over

From programmable LEGO robots to mobile apps like Hopscotch, there’s no shortage of games and toys designed to get children interested in computer science. But when it comes to adults, the options to learn how to code start to look a lot less like fun and a lot more like classwork.

Over the past nine months, Google has been trying to change that through Grasshopper, a mobile game meant to teach adults the basic principles of coding. Although five thousand people have already graduated from Grasshopper’s JavaScript Fundamentals course while the app has been in testing, the search giant is revealing it and making it publicly available for the first time on Wednesday. The game is launching for iOS and Android out of Area 120, Google’s internal workshop for experimental projects.

Factitious is a game for testing your skill at identifying fake and misleading news stories. The game was developed by the American University Game Lab and the American University's School of Communication. I learned about the game last month when Larry Ferlazzo featured it and I have since shared it in a couple of professional development workshops. It was a hit in both workshops in which I shared it with teachers.

Bottom Line: For flexible classrooms, creative teachers, and sharp students, Civilization V is the perfect platform for making rather than memorizing history.