Teachers rock our world

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Manager, K-12 Education Programs

Yesterday we hosted our third Google Teacher Academy, this time in sunny Santa Monica. More than 50 innovative K-12 educators from across Southern California joined us to share and learn new methods of incorporating online tools and collaborative techniques into their classroom experiences. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers spent time hearing from experts and one another about subjects like lesson-plan development, group projects, and on-demand publishing using Google and non-Google tools. Carol Anne McGuire, who teaches blind and visually impaired students in Orange Unified School District, delivered the keynote along with some of her students. She brought to life "Rock Our World," an international project in which kids across continents work together online to make movies, tell stories, and compose music.

After previous Google Teacher Academies in our Mountain View and New York City offices, we consider ourselves fortunate to have a cadre of 150+ Google Certified Teachers nationwide. These "graduates" continue to inspire their students: for instance, Jerome Burg created GoogleLitTrips, a way to journey along some of literature's most classic roadtrips via Google Earth, and Cheryl Davis engages her students in the presidential election and local history through podcasts such as "Candidate Watch" and "Postcards from the Past."

We started this education program last October to support teachers, empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. To say we're inspired by what we've seen is an understatement.