Google Educator Certification

I wanted to give a quick shout out to +Beverly Carpenter and +Katy Collins.  Although the 3 of us are first and second year teachers in our district, and are located in different buildings, we have developed a Personal Learning Network (PLN) and friendship during the 2013-2014 school year.  The strange bond that brought us together was the love for technology in our classrooms.

In October, I organized an informal meeting with elementary staff from our district in a local coffee shop to discuss what we were doing in our classrooms with our new technology.  Katy attended. Our love for tech and helping our students, connected us.  We were intrigued by what the other was doing. In November, I began connecting with Beverly through an Innovation Academy we both attended. We began discussing how our 4th grade classrooms could collaborate.

After connecting with these two outstanding educators we have:

• connected our classrooms through blogging and writing

and 

• presented at an Alan November Innovation Academy

Presentation on Electronic Portfolios, Blogging, and eLeaders.

Presentation Link

Our most recent adventure was completed today.  Webb City now has 3 Google Educators!  Woot!  Woot!  This journey began in February.  After hours of work and 5 tests, today we successfully completed our certification.  It was a difficult and time consuming adventure, but we learned a lot about all the wonderful uses Google has for educators.  

Katy, Beverly, and I

Test Records

How did I ever teach without Google? Beverly, Katy, and I all work in different buildings but our students are able to collaborate using Google Drive, Lucid Press, and blogging. Our students are better researchers, writers, and thinkers because of the power of Google.

Kudos to my new PLN and all they have taught me and shared with me through the past year. You all are the best! I'm sure we will be off and running toward our next adventure soon. I can't tell you what the future holds for this new found team of teachers, but I can say...look out International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)  in Atlanta...on June 27th you will have 3 excited teachers headed your way to soak up some great ideas for our next adventure. I can't wait!