Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Inspire Your Students with the 2017 Google I/O Opening Animated Video

Last night following our weekly EdTech Situation Room webshow and this evening, I watched the 2 hour Google I/O 2017 conference keynote on YouTube. There were lots of exciting announcements during the keynote, but in this post I want to share and comment on the introductory video. I used SafeShare.tv to create a trimmed clip of this video, which is the “story of an idea.” It’s a sophisticated animated sketchnote of a character that looks a bit like Ziggy, and his “idea” that becomes a walking, golden egg with feet and hands. In the short film they go on an adventure together, overcoming adversity, having fun, and ultimately launching into our enormous and gorgeous universe. It’s very well done.

Intro Video of Google I/O 2017 Keynote by Wesley Fryer, on Flickr
Intro Video of Google I/O 2017 Keynote” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Here’s an embedded version of the video which isn’t entirely cropped, but does start at the beginning of the animation sequence, 46 seconds into the video. I created this embedded version for free with vtubetools.com.

As a technical aside, YouTube provides the option to create a video link which starts at a specific time, but not embed code which starts before the original video’s beginning. For that you need to use a tool like SafeShare.tvvtubetools.com, or TubeChop.

This video captures some of the spirit of Google developers and (I assume from the keynote) the themes of the conference: creativity, persistence, and a commitment to use (and the belief in the potential to use) code to make the world a better place. Consider sharing this video clip with your own students, and then perhaps discuss what themes they see in this creative vision. Here are a few questions to get your started:

  1. What do the different characters seem to represent in this film?
  2. Why does the egg turn gold?
  3. If this video is understood as an allegory for a coding project (that a developer might undertake), what is symbolized by the giant mountain they face and have to climb?
  4.  Why is it significant that a group of characters helped push the egg to the top of the mountain?
  5. What is represented by the egg almost falling down the mountain?
  6. Why do the characters enter into a video game together?
  7. What board game do they play together, and why is that historically significant to what’s happened recently with artificial intelligence? (Answer: They play the game “Go.” In March 2016, an AI created by Google famously defeated a human world Go champion. This is a bigger feat than IBM’s Deep Blue‘s chess victory over Garry Kasparov in 1996.)
  8. Why does the egg fly into space at the end?
  9. What do you think the ending sequence showing our beautiful universe represents?
  10. What kind of attitude or spirit is conveyed by the accompanying song in this video?
  11. What messages do you think the creator(s) of this video wanted to convey to the audience of Google I/O?

I used Shazam on my iPhone to identify the background song for this animated video as “Alright, Alright, Alright” by Jerry Mungo. Here’s a 1973 version of the song shared on YouTube.

Here’s the original video clip of the 2 hour keynote. I recommend you add it to your “Watch Later” YouTube playlist. If you use one of the chopped / cropped versions of the keynote’s video introduction and talk about it with your students, please let me know with a comment below or by reading out to me on Twitter at @wfryer. Never underestimate the value of inspiring young minds with the power and potential to change the world for good!

Access all my “STEM Curiosity Links” on stem.wesfryer.com/home/curiosity. These are short video clips or articles I’ve shared with students in STEM class to inspire their imaginations and curiosity.


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