Thank you Google

I'm so excited today - I just heard that I've been selected to participate in the first ever Google Teacher Academy in the UK next month.  This is also the first Google Teacher Academy focused exclusively on educational leaders and is designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies.  Upon completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local regions and beyond.  This is what the press release says:

Google Certified Teachers are exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning, as well as creative leaders and ambassadors for change. They are recognized experts and widely admired for their commitment to high expectations for students, life-long learning and collaboration.

I'm totally in awe about this, and have hardly been able to sit still since I received the email this morning.  On the Google for Educators website it states:

Google Certified Teachers are:

• Exceptional educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning.
• Creative leaders who understand their local needs and can spread innovation as a recognized expert.
• Ambassadors for change who model high expectations, life-long learning, collaboration, equity & inclusion, and innovation.

Google Certified Teachers are expected to:

• Develop a "Personal Action Plan."
• Lead at least three local professional development activities over the course of 12 months.
• Successfully deploy one school on to Google Apps for Education.
• Actively participate in the Google Certified Teacher Online Community.
• Share the impact of their work with other Google Certified Teachers through an end-of-year reflection.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm passionate about professional development, and when I read what GCTs are expected to do I'm excited that I will become part of a community dedicated to developing other teachers and promoting Google Apps for Education in my own school.

So at the end of what has been a quite a difficult year for me, moving to a new continent, teaching at a new school, facing adjustment issues from my family and so on, I am feeling positive about next year and I'm starting to think that the move we made to Switzerland may just have been the right one after all.

Thanks to Doug Belshaw for his blog post which put this whole train of events into motion.

Image from Danny Sullivan