Greetings and welcome to the second issue of the Google Teacher Newsletter.
If
you're like most teachers, it's been a busy school year for you so far.
You're not the only one who's been busy, though; here at Google, we've
been spending a lot of time meeting with teachers, administrators, and
even some students, and using their feedback to make important changes
to our site, Google for Educators. Visit us at
www.google.com/educators
and you'll see what we mean.
Most common among the comments
we've been getting from teachers has been, "It's great that you guys
put up this site, but we want a way to communicate -- both with you and
other educators. And we don't want it to be via email -- we want an
interactive community where we can share our thoughts, post our
lessons, discuss current events, and just talk." In response to this
feedback, we've created the Google for Educators discussion group; we
invite you to join this community today, at
http://groups.google.com/group/google-for-educators.
You also
asked for more content created by teachers, for teachers. We sponsor a
blog produced by our friends at WestEd called the Infinite Thinking
Machine, and in response to this request, we've started to include some
of the content from that blog on our front page. (You can view the full
blog, which contains lots of educational video content, at
http://www.infinitethinking.org.) We've also included some of the
projects submitted by you in the classroom activities section of our
site, at
http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html.
Many
of you wrote to thank us for giving you access to specific Google tools
via our site, as well as ideas about how to use those tools in the
classroom -- but pointed out that you also use some of our other
products to help students, like Google Page Creator, Google News, and
Google Groups. Thanks for letting us know about your interest in these
products; we've added them to the "Tools for your classroom" section of
our site, at
http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html.
Since
we started our educators initiative, we've conducted two Google Teacher
Academies, one in the Bay Area and one in New York. 110 teachers
visited us to learn techniques for using our tools in the classroom and
to network with their fellow teachers. They also joined the Google
Certified Teacher group -- one of the most popular discussion groups
we've seen, and an inspiration for our new educators community. To
learn more about the Google Certified Teacher program, please visit
http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html Although we don't have a
solid date for the next Google Teacher Academy, we plan on hosting one
soon -- possibly in a region near you -- so please check the Google for
Educators site often.
Lastly, we know the site hasn't changed
much since you first saw it. That's going to change in coming months --
we're going to be updating the site regularly with added tools and
teaching activities -- so please be sure to check in with us often. We
look forward to continuing to help you access the information and tools
you need to give students the best education possible, and as always we
invite your comments and suggestions.
Cheers!
Cristin Frodella
Google K-12 Education Outreach