Photo courtesy of David Gallagher via flickrcc license
Hooray! I am two units into the Google Certification for Educators.
Whew! Time to pause and reflect.
At the end of Unit Two I’ve:
- clocked 37 hours of PD time
- written, tabbed and highlighted 82 pages of notes
- answered more than 150 multiple choice questions
- learned a hell of a lot.
This last point surprises me more than the number of hours I’ve committed. I confess I thought it was going to be a bit of a breeze — after all, I’m fairly experienced with web tools in general and I use the Google suite of tools everyday for personal and professional. As it started out, I remember thinking, “How hard could it be?” But that (as it turns out) was not the right question.
The right question is, “How much better can it be?”
And the answer is a lot!
The tools have more potential and flexibility than I’d realized and the course is specifically addressing educational uses and applications. So as I am apply my new knowledge about features, functions and settings, the changes to the way I work are paying off immediately.
We often don’t get to know our tools well because:
- we are too busy
- we think we know them already (blush)
- we just aren’t that interested in the tools (do I really need to learn about spreadsheets, they’re kind of boring).
But those are ways of denying ourselves smarter ways to work.
As I work through this course I am reminded that while it takes quite a bit of time, it is also giving me the time to become an expert with the tools I need to continue to lead in my field.
