The recent announcement that Google will be making downloads of Sun's OpenOffice suite in exchange for a Google toolbar browser download with every Java SDK was picked up nicely by this post from John Battelle: John Battelle's Searchblog: Google-Sun - The Toolbar, Ay, There's the Rub.
And the rub is?
"In other words, Google really, really wants more Toolbar distribution."
If users continue to spend more and more time in their browser, it's easy to see that making a grab for a permament piece of browser real estate is a sensible thing to do...
So why's that interesting for the OU? Well, what of there was an OU toolbar? For current students it would combine at least Library and course resources (with the odd link to course sales web pages, of course), for non-students tools to access open content learning materials, perhaps, as well as 'public' OU sites.
Why? First off (for current students) - time-saving and added value. For prospective students, easier access to open content learning resources (and perhaps an open content OU VLE?)
Far off - search and Google are now, to many people, synonymous. If we want lifelong, web based learning and the OU to have a similar realtionship in people's minds, we need presence - and the toolbar is a good way - at the moment - to provide it...
Posted by ajh59 at October 5, 2005 11:23 AM