Well I bet you are ready to join, I think I certainly am – The GTA is the Google Teacher Academy and in my opinion is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate and communicate with like minded practitioners within Education.
Anyone can apply – so please do while you still have time:
http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html
There is a short application process where you have to reflect and write on some of the experiences you have had with education. You then have to complete your own 1 minute video which is fantastic and you can view mine here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVc5E0W3kY4
I should point out that you could probably spend weeks and weeks thinking about what you really want to talk about but I just picked one of the examples of classroom innovation that I have been involved with and tried to sum it up in an unusual way. I am being honest when I say that the whole thing took me less than half an hour, I am not using it as an excuse but I do value this programme but with other things going on at the moment like Ofsted and other major things within school half an hour was all the time I had and I wanted to not miss out on a chance to get on the programme.
You may be thinking while you’re reading this just why I am applying?
It is really simple – like most of you out there I want to be a great teacher, the main reason being that I want to engage my students and inspire them to love learning. I don’t need any awards, accolades or being part of the Google Teacher Academy to tell me that I am a good teacher because I know that from the daily I feedback I get from my classes, they are not afraid to tell you when they don’t enjoy things or if they didn’t find the lesson interesting. However I want the best for all my students and that is why I am extremely motivated to constantly try to improve, to try new things to really push my own professional development, I suppose to be at the top of my game because at the end of the day it is all that they deserve! I think that if I am selected to attend the Google Teacher Academy then I will learn more about some of the Google products that I have little experience of using from the ‘experts’ at Google but more importantly I can collaborate and share good practice with a network of educators just like me. If I make it there I can then share all I have learnt with my students, staff back at school, the local area, nationally and internationally.
As I write this there is a couple of days left, I urge you to apply and see if you can be part of it too. John has also written a good post about this so please check that out:
http://mclear.co.uk/2010/06/13/making-a-google-teacher-academy-application-is-easy/
As always comments and opinions are always welcome!
Good luck with your application! I put mine in yesterday and completely agree with your reasons for applying – collaboration is definitely the way forward.
Maybe see you in July 🙂