5 Reasons to Get Google Certified!

I recently took the exam to recertify as a Google Educator Level 1. It got me thinking about the many benefits of obtaining this certification. Here are my top five reasons:

1. Learn New Skills

Whether you utilize the free training resources in the Google Teacher Center, or you find resources outside from colleagues or social media, you will absolutely learn new skills as you prepare for certification. Check out the resources linked below to practice some specific skills that you will be tested on in the exams:

2. Increase Your Efficiency

There are so many great time-saving skills that you gain as you become more proficient with the Google tools! Once you figure out how to save time with the little things, then you can put that time to better use creating amazing learning experiences for your students! Here are just a few tips to save time:

3. Build Your Confidence Using Technology

The great thing about gaining these tech skills is that it gives you the confidence you need to keep trying new things and learning more! You might even find that your colleagues are coming to you for tips and advice.

4. Become Part of a Community of Learners

There are so many great communities of fellow "Googley" learners! Some of them are specifically geared towards preparing for certification, and some are spaces where educators are just sharing awesome ideas! Here are a few you can check out:

5. Inspire Creativity in Your Classroom and School

Now you can take all those skills you learned and all those ideas you gathered from your communities, and you can create some super creative learning experiences for students in your school! If you are looking for some extra creative ideas, trying searching the hashtags #GoogleET (Certified Trainers) or #GoogleEI (Certified Innovators). They are sharing some AMAZING ideas!

So what are you waiting for? Go get certified! 😀

Click here for the link to the Google Teacher Center to get started!

Comments

Awesome Projects for January!

This week has been super busy! But it's that awesome kind of busy where I am working on multiple projects for January that I am SUPER excited about! Kinders on Chromebooks We are preparing for our 3rd Quarter EdTech session, and we are planning to include resources specifically designed for our K-2 teachers. We want to create videos in which we model strategies that K-2 teachers can use to help their students learn how to login to Chromebooks. My EdTech teammate reached out to the Kindergarten team at one of our schools, and they were kind enough to open their doors to us! We will be working with this team on the first day back from Winter Break in January. Our plan is for me to lead the first session while another EdTech team member records the lesson and assists students as needed. We will be sharing the video footage, along with other K-2 resources, with our teachers during our sessions throughout the 3rd Quarter. This week I am trying to build a Google Site th

Create an Instagram Story!

One day on Twitter, I came across a tweet from Ryan O'Donnell ( @creativeedtech ) in which he shared a Facebook template that could be used for students to demonstrate their learning. I clicked on the link to his website , and I was AMAZED at all the cool templates he had created for teachers to use for free! I decided to try using an Instagram template during a unit on the planets in our solar system. I wanted students to demonstrate what they learned about the different planets, but I wanted them to do it in a creative way. Here are the directions I gave to my students: Here are some student examples: Student Example #1 Student Example #2 Student Example #3 Student Example #4 I really enjoyed this activity, and I love how students familiar with hashtags were able to create and use them in clever ways! If I was to go back and do this again, I would spend some time working with students less familiar with social media and hashtags and give them some more

Setting New EdTech Goals

Last week I accomplished an edtech goal that I have had for the past year - I was selected as a Google for Education Certified Educator! Yay! This was a really big goal of mine, and I'm really proud of myself for following through on it. The most challenging part for me was creating the video because it involved talking about myself. It felt SUPER awkward. This seems like a great time to set some new edtech goals! Present at an EdTech Conference I really want to start presenting and sharing ideas at edtech conferences. I love going to edtech conferences because I always learn something new, and I think that I have some ideas to share that might help other teachers try new things in their own schools and classrooms. There is an EdTechTeam Summit coming to Phoenix in March. I think that would be a great opportunity to try submitting a session proposal! Become an ISTE Certified Educator In September, I began the process of becoming an ISTE Certified Educator .

Roxi Thompson

Search This Blog