What is it like attending Google Teacher's Academy

[Cheryl Oakes]

Oh my goodness. Sarah Sutter, Alice Barr and Cheryl Oakes were recently chosen to attend Google Teacher's Academy in NYC November 2008. It was an incredible experience. We will be talking about this a whole lot between now and May 2009, when each of us are committed to complete 3 projects. Well, being the enthusiasts that we are we couldn't wait to get started and ended up with this podcast on our way home. We home it is a teaser to whet your appetite and encourage you to follow our adventures with Google this school year, and beyond. Our messages will be cross posted at all our blogs, we want to share our message in as many different venues as we can.
Here is the first of many posts! Read this post, then look below the photo, there is a link to the mp3 of our discussion on our way home!!!
Kern Kelley is another member of the Maine Connection and he did a terrific job presenting Google Tools at our academy.

[Terry Smith]

Way cool!

Terry

[Ernie Easter]

Are any of these projects virtual so we can participate (or should that be live) vicariously?

[Cheryl Oakes]

Ernie, all three of us will continue to post and we will be sharing all kinds of links. If you have not already signed up, you should join Google Educators and you will begin receiving their newsletter!
Cheryl

[Gail Poulin]

I enjoyed listening to your conversation as you drove home from Google. You talked about the importance of PD and student driven actions. That brings to mind a comic by Kevin aka dogtrax that appears in our local paper each week. I think this link brings you to the upcoming post http://tinyurl.com/6err7q It really colors your comment even more.
Gail

[Cheryl Oakes]

Gail,
That is the perfect Comic!!! I loved it. You will be hearing more from us about Google, it was the bomb!
Cheryl

[Gail Poulin]

Oh and thanks too for drawing my attention to the little messages Google provides alerting us to new features. Because I was more aware of this now, I clicked on today's alert and changed my theme. Now I'm at the beach any time. I think this theme is one of the ones that changes throughout the day depending on the time!
Gail

[Debra Giannone]

I am so kicking myself that I didn't apply for GTA!

[kernkelley]

Hey all, it sounded like a fun ride home!!

[Alice Barr]

We missed you Kern! Thanks for doing such a great session at GTA!

[coakes]

Google Teacher's Academy work continues. By 12/18/08, we needed to post our activity timeline. I had to scramble since we lost power for 6 days. But, now I am up to speed and look forward to participating and leading these activities. My peer reviewer is Rita Zeinstejer a fellow webhead I got to meet in person in NYC. Updates on our progress will appear here.

[Andy Losik]

GTA Chicago was a great experience for me. It was a whirlwind day but full of tremendous content. Spending a day with Kern, Lisa, David Jakes, Mark Wagner, and Steve Dembo can only be topped by assembling 50 of the best teachers from the area. My PLN grew tremendously that day. Quite a group Google has assembled via its academies.