Tag: gta

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GTA is Go

A few weeks ago I posted my application video for the Sydney Google Teacher Academy. According to their schedule, I wasn’t expecting to hear anything back about it until late next week, so I was very excited yesterday when I checked my email and found this waiting for me…

You have been selected to participate in the Google Teacher Academy – Sydney. After reviewing your application, we believe that you have the experience and passion necessary to positively impact education in your region, and we are excited to have you join us on Wednesday 20 April 2011 at the Google office in Sydney.

Woohoo! I’m aware that it’s a pretty hotly contested thing to get into, so I’m feeling very fortunate to have been accepted. Of course, as well as spending time at Google ‘s fantastic new Sydney offices and getting hands-on and in-depth with all the cool tools that Google offers for education, the other best part is in the networking and the conversations that I know will take place over the very full day and a half. Just from seeing mentions on Twitter, it appears that a number of other people I know will be there, like @jessmcculloch, @adrian_camm, @davein2it and @TarNZC, so it’ll be awesome!

I know there’s others who got in, although I don’t know who they are. If you’re also going to GTA Sydney, drop a note in the comments below. It’d be fun to know who’s going.

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Explore. Get Motivated. Learn.

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!