Accepted to Google Teacher Academy in Sydney!

February 27, 2011 by londondj0430 2 Comments

Source http://goo.gl/kUXD

Good News! I have been accepted to attend the Google Teacher Academy (GTA) in Sydney, Australia! I can’t tell you how excited I am for this opportunity to work with other great educators and innovators who will be attending and already a part of the Google Certified Teacher family. This is the first international Google Teacher Academy and the first to focus on “education leaders.” (If you are interested in watching my application video you can find it here or at the bottom of this post!)

Source (www.kstf.org)

Right after the excitement sunk in I started looking for a way to get the money to attend. Luckily, I am part of another great organization; the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF). “KSTF advocates for new teachers and the teaching profession by supporting beginning high school science and mathematics teachers on the path to becoming expert instructors and teacher leaders” (www.kstf.org). KSTF has been a great motivator and builder of my teaching career; it has helped me accomplish things in a very short time that I would have expected to take many years on my own. I have been granted a leadership grant from KSTF which includes funding to attend Google Teacher Academy. The leadership grant will also help me achieve the requirements of GTA:

• Develop a “Personal Action Plan.”
• Lead at least three local professional development activities over the course of 12 months.
• Successfully deploy one school on to Google Apps for Education.
• Actively participate in the Google Certified Teacher Online Community.
• Share the impact of their work with other Google Certified Teachers through an end-of-year reflection (http://goo.gl/nRqw).

I have made plans to provide a 2-day professional development on “Google Apps in Education” for my own district this summer as well as a 2 1/2 day professional development for a neighboring district. I will also help this neighboring district in their effort to begin implementing Google Apps for Education in to the learning in their classrooms. KSTF has provided support for travel and lodging for GTA and the summer professional development activities, along with stipends for ten teachers who attend the summer events. I’m excited about these opportunities and chances to grow as an education leader in my district and state. I hope to continue to add to these opportunities in the future!