Google Certified Educator Fundamentals Level 1

Now that I have finished the Postgraduate in Applied Practice in Digital & Collaborative learning, my next mission is to become a Google Certified Educator.

Three years ago I introduced Google Apps for Education into our school. This I did solely on my own with no outside help, which was a challenge to say the least! I set up the Google domain, re-created the school website in Google Sites and started introducing the teachers to Google Apps for Education.

I did this gradually so as not to overload the teachers with too much learning too soon.

The final step was to move us all to Gmail which I did in conjunction with our support partners New Era just before the end of last term. 

In summary our school is now regularly using the following tools:

• Gmail for teachers, support and auxiliary staff, as well as all students from Years 4-6
• Google Calendar for the school calendar
• Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for collaboration between the teachers
• Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for collaboration between the students
• Google Management Console for Chromebook deployment and management
• Google Sites for the school website
• Google Sites for an internal site for just teachers
• Google Admin for the administration of the Google domain

I want to be a Google Certified Educator for a number of reasons:

• I want to ensure that I am using the suite of applications to the best of my ability
• I want to ensure that I am giving my students the best experience with these tools
• I want to lead by example and motivate other teachers within the school to become certified
• I want recognition of my knowledge of the Google suite of applications

The certification path that I am going to follow is:

• Educator Level 1
• Educator Level 2
• Certified Trainer

In this blog I am going to reflect on each lesson and detail the learning that took place in each lesson. 

Each blog post will relate to each lesson.