I took off over a decade from teaching full time to stay home and be with my children so I have had to do some catch-up to be current. I am grateful my district has been willing to send me to some great conferences to really give me a jump start and add to my confidence. I have attended the CSTA, NSTA, and Stem Symposium Conferences. I learn new things at each conference. This will be my fourth year back in the classroom full time. This year, I made a goal to become a Google Certified Teacher. I worried it was a long shot since I have to work at understanding technology.
I have used Google Classroom for the last couple of years but I hadn't tried hangouts or pushed out Google Forms to my students. I like that the training for Google certification is online and you can do it at your own pace. Click here for the Google certification page.
There are 13 units and my goal was to do at least a unit a week. Sometimes I did more and a few times I did less. Overall, I finished in about 3 months going at a regular but leisurely pace. I have three teenagers, a husband, dinner to make, sports to attend, and a full time job. But, I did it!
I took the test on a quiet Sunday afternoon. It took me the whole time and I didn't quite finish. I was concerned. I immediately got my results and I had passed. I was pretty thrilled. I worked to add the "Google Certified Teacher" to my signature. I kind of wanted to tell the world.
My favorite things I learned from the Google certification course:
1. Flubaroo (link here) is an app that grades quizzes created in Google forms. Flubaroo exports the results to a spreadsheet. This is life changing stuff! This is in Unit 8.
2. How to transform data students enter in to a form into a graph. I have used this for grades 4 and up. I tried it with 3rd grade and it was a bit tough. I might try it again though. I actually have students input the data in a Google form and then I create the graph from the spreadsheet with class input. It works like magic! A click of a button and we have data neatly displayed in a graph. We can look at outliers and see which groups had trouble and look in to why. It is amazing. Do you want to be Google Certified? It is inexpensive (the test costs $10) and can be done at home on your own time and at your own pace. You've got this!