Many of you have been asking how my day was at the Google Teacher Academy, so I thought I would give you a brief overview of this exciting day.

Last Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to spend the day at the Google Teacher Academy in Chicago with 50+ other educators from around the country. Our agenda was packed! We started out with a nice welcome from Dr. Mark Wagner, Allison Merrick, Lucy Gray and Cristen Frodella from Google but then we quickly jumped into our first activity, The Innovation Connection, where we had to share an education innovation or innovative lesson – and they gave us only a few minutes to think about it. That woke us up and got the creative juices flowing! After this short activity we received an overview of what the expectations are for Google Certified Teachers and then David Jakes shared his inspiring presentation on innovation, 9 Dots.

Then we were quickly off to our first Tech Tools Rotation where we were treated to brief, but comprehensive  30-minute overviews on Google Search, then Google Docs and finally Google Apps for Education. As good teachers do, these presenters (Lucy Gray, Erica Hartman, Cindy Lane) encouraged a lot of interaction and conversation. The time flew by and after a tour around the three floors of Google, we were treated to a wonderful buffet lunch where more conversation ensued.

The afternoon began with the Innovation Learning #2 presentation passionately brought to us by Steve Dembo. Then for the next couple of hours we were into our Tech Tools Rotation #2 with more inspiring educators sharing their experiences with Google’s Blogger, Reader and iGoogle (Ryan Bretag) then Bookmarks, Notebook, and Browser Extensions (Kern Kelly) and finally Google Sites (Lisa Thumann).

All the breakout groups came back together to hear two members of the Google Diversity Team speak about Google’s internship program then we were off again exploring Even More Google (Calendar, Gears, Picasa, and more). Kern Kelly was up again to share an ‘inspiring idea’ in which he told the story about one of his teachers. The teacher approached Kern and was very concerned because all the questions she was asking in class were quickly and easily being found by her students using Google Search. The point of his story is, “If you’re asking questions that can be Googled (single response), then maybe they are not the best questions.” Food for thought…

Our last activity of the day was our “Proof-of-Concept Projects” where we worked with one or two other participants to come up with an idea of a new project that (1) utilizes at least one Google tool, (2) is tailored for a specific educational purpose, (3) illustrates how you (or students) would use the tool, (4) demonstrates the concept sufficiently that other GCTs might implement it and (5) is incomplete. Katie Kirsch, the wonderful Lake Bluff Middle School librarian and I decided that since we both our schools recently received the Picturing America grant that we would build a project around this exciting resource.

Our idea is to create a Google Maps project where we connect with other schools from across the country who also are participating the  Picturing America project. One of the ideas is have other schools create placemarks within Google Maps that show where the piece of art, architecture or event depicted in the print is located. We also thought it would be fun to have students and teachers respond to some basic questions such as “What is your favorite print and why?” and also have teachers share activities that they developed to support student learning with Picturing America.

At this point, as amazing as it seemed to us all, it was already 6:30. Time for dinner with more opportunities to reflect on a wonderful day before we said our good-byes and parted ways.

In closing, here are two quotes that stuck with me:

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
-Linus Pauling (by way of David Jakes)

“If we’re not giving students the education about how to be responsible on the Internet, then they probably won’t get it.”
-Kern Kelly

Because the Google Teacher Academy is based on the “train the trainer” model, one of our responsibilities as Google Certified Teachers is to spread the word. So please remember that I am more than happy to share with you any, or all, of the exciting learning opportunities that are available with Google tools for education. Let’s get together soon!

And now, I can proudly say that I am a  Google Certified Teacher!