This is my application video for the Sydney Google Teacher Academy. Google have run a number of these events for teachers in the USA, but this is the first one to be held in Australia (and I thought I read somewhere it was also the first to be run outside the US, but I could be wrong about that). Regardless, I have wanted to attend a GTA for a long time now, and even contemplated going to the States to attend one. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to hear that it was coming to Sydney.
Part of the requirement for the application is to make an original one minute video based on either of the following topics: “Motivation and Learning” OR “Classroom Innovation“. They said to try and be creative. The video is designed to demonstrate your technical ability, your resourcefulness, your commitment, and your unique personality and interests. My first thought was “What? All in the same minute?” Seriously, minute-long videos are hard to make!
No doubt there will be many people applying and I know it will be really competitive to get into it, but you’ve got to be in it to win it. The due date is not until January 27 so if you’ve been thinking about applying as well, you can find all the details at http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html.
Good luck and I hope to see some of you there!
Explore. Get Motivated. Learn. by Chris Betcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Nice Video Chris, good luck. I like the topical subject matter with the floods and all.
Put in my application too, but I have a problem with google applications at school – things like Picassa and Google earth (for students) not available so I’m not as as across the Google world as I’d like, altho using the usuals – docs, mail, maps, scholar etc etc. Hoping to get in though, but I think its v competitive. Cross fingers, and good luck to you too.
Hi Sunny, yes I’m sure it will be VERY competitive. It would be nice to get in, but I’m aware that the chances of not getting in are probably better than those for getting in. Still, we give it a shot eh?
Good luck and I hope we see each other there!
Great video Chris – enjoyed it!
A big part of motivation (for me) is not only the activity itself and the intrinsic “feeling of accomplishment” etc but also the extrinsic motivation of acknowledgement/appreciation-from-those-who-can-appreciate, feedback, and accolades. So here’s a comment with all 3 for you –
Awesome work and thanks for sharing; loved the “glocal-ness” embedded in the video response; and GO TEAM CHRIS 🙂
A second great video in as many weeks. Well done, I hope your applications are both successful.
Great Video Chris, well done.
@Matthew, @Penny, @Carmel, @Byron… Thank you! And @Penny, I can dig where you’re coming from… nice wrap up of motivation! 🙂
Hi Chris,
Great vid! I actually have a great deal of respect for those who will view the application videos and make the decisions about participants so… I hope you really enjoy the Academy and learn heaps! Hopefully it will be run along the unconference model so that you can have learning pitched at your level… no beginner stuff required here!
Regards, Deb
P.S. Chris, can I be really cheeky and ask what the font is that you used for the white screen text in your vid? Might as well start teaching again now… only a couple of days left before school starts!
That’s not cheeky, that’s a good question…. 😉 From memory it’s called American Typewriter. It’s just one of the standard default fonts in iMovie’s text input dialog. I think that’s what I used.
Wow! Chris You look like you are already very good with many applications. Congratulations on a fabulous video. I am very impressed. Good luck 🙂
Thanks Audrey. I guess I know a fair bit about a lot of software. At the risk of sounding pompous, I must say that learning software has never been difficult for me. I’ve always picked up the use of all sorts of software very quickly and easily… I used to think that everyone was like that, but I eventually worked out they’re not. 🙂
There have been many times over the years when someone has started showing me how to use a particular piece of software and within a very short period of time I seem to be using all the advanced features… it’s particularly annoying when I go to workshops and training sessions (as a participant) because I tend to find myself out on the edge of the software pretty quickly and then I start asking the workshop presenter all sorts of questions they can’t answer, or discovering things they didn’t know the software could do. It does tend to make me appear a bit of a smart arse at times, but that’s never my intention… I just latch onto most software really quickly.
Some people are good at sports. I’m not. Some are good at music. I’m not particularly musical. Some people have gifts for all sorts of bizarre and unusual things… I’ve come to realise that my gift is discovering, exploring and using software. It’s just what I love doing. Thankfully, when you work as an ICT Integrator, a love of exploring what software can do is a pretty good thing to have. 🙂
Great vid Chris, covered everything really well. Good luck!
I would love to see your video. Has the link been removed?
Hi Stephanie,
I’ve fixed that missing video… I cleaned up some old plugins in WordPress today (and by that, I mean I deleted them) and one of them was the plugin I used to embed this video. I guess I should ahve checked to see if it would delete the links that were already in place… guess what? It did. 🙂
I just re-embedded the video so you should be able to access it now.
If you’re applying to the GTA, good luck with it!
thanks! Not applying…so far from that!!! Just love to learn by seeing what others are doing.