Hi I'm Mike Reading from the Google Apps for Education Community. Today, I have an
exciting announcement about initiative.
Over the last couple of months or so we have been working on a new partnership idea with the Google
Apps For Education Team that will bring Google - Using Teachers together.
As I travel around I've been teaching teachers how to use Google in their classrooms. One
of the questions that's most often asked at the end of the training is, 'What's next?',
How do I start connecting?' and 'How do I start today?'.
We have a Google certified teacher community that's a little bit exclusive and there's
now other Google endorsed communities that bring school staff together to share ideas,
ask questions and best practices. SO THE GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION COMMUNITY
HAS BEEN DESIGNED WITH A NUMBER OF FEATURES:
* We wanted to create a space where teachers could come together and ask questions and
have those questions answered by other Google Certified teachers, Google Certified trainers
and other experienced Google using teachers * We wanted to provide a forum where teachers
could get together and share their ideas and resource s as well
* As we design the community, we wanted to create an opportunity for teachers to be able
to find other teachers who use Google and to be able to connect those teachers together.
So you will be able to find teachers who are in your local area or in your region or maybe
even find teachers across the globe. * One of the frustrations we've often found
with teachers that use Google for collaboration is that often you would have to spend a lot
of time teaching the other teachers how to use the tools. So hopefully this will save
time and energy. * We also wanted to create a space where the
students who have been selected by the schools can also join the community and share ideas
and resources as well. Now, we've done this in a way that satisfies child protection laws
and also adheres to social media policies. * And really what we wanted to do at the end
of the day was to provide resources for teachers and for students where they could become local
ambassadors in their own community and they would be able to answer questions and also
provide professional development and training to their own staff and student body.
And there's a whole lot of other things just built in there as well.
AND SO TO CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF THE COMMUNITY What we are going to is we're going to host
3 free Google Events here in Sydney and also one in Auckland.
The first event will be specifically for school leaders and for people who are leading
and trained in the technology use in their school environment. So the first event will
be held on the 26th of April here in Sydney at the Google offices.
The second event is going to be held at a local school in Sydney and that event is going
to be open to anyone who teaches in the school environment. Because of the site constrain
of the Google offices, we're going to hold that event in the school and we'll let you
know what school is that soon. The third event is going to be held at a
school in Auckland on the 18th of May. To register for these free Google Apps For
Education Events, you simply need to go to the Gafe Community website. That website can
be found at gafecommunity.com and there you'll find all the details on how to register for
those events. IF YOU CAN'T MAKE THE FRE EVENTS, DON'T
WORRY YOU CAN STILL JOIN THE COMMUNITY! To find out more about the community and to
put your name on a list to be notified as soon as the community is accepting enrolments,
one again go over to the GafeCommunity.com website and enter in your details into the
GOOGLE FORM there and we'll let you know as soon as the details are finalized. If you
have any questions you can also send us an email at any time and the email address is
hello@googleappsforedu.com. There's also a contact form on the GafeCommunity.com website.
So, we'd love to see you inside the community or we'd love to see you in one of our free
events. We'd also like you to share this video via your networks and on social media.
And if you could let as many teachers know about the new Google Apps for Education Community,
that would be amazing. So, we'd love to see you inside the community
or in one of our events soon. Thanks for watching.