Tall Poppies And Google Teacher Academy

It was from my Australian friends that I learned the phrase “Tall Poppy Syndrome“.* So it’s somewhat appropriate that I try to write about my time at Google Teacher Academy in Sydney with a measure of humility and gratitude and quickly followed with how I’m supposed to change the world.

Sitting in the room.

Never underestimate the power of teachers meeting face to face, sharing quality time together to develop their thinking and networks #gtasyd

— tombarrett (@tombarrett) May 8, 2013

In a conference room in Google HQ Australia, I look around a room and saw strangers, twitter acquaintances, and friends. There were fifty-two educators from 13 countries, directly influencing 32,727 students, 40,311 teachers, and therefore indirectly influencing 410,885 students. These were amazing teachers who want to do amazing things for their students. In other words a powerful bunch of educators.

The fantastic Team Silverbrook, lead by my friend Chris Betcher. A great cohort of educators, who I got to spend the days learning with.

Nominally it was a tech conference (here’s a really great write up from another Google Certified Teacher about the Google Teach Academy from Gretel for the nitty-gritty). It was Google-y. We saw demo-slams. We learned techs and tips. But it was really about meeting people, re-connecting with people, and finding a community of innovative, positive, supportive educators. There were a lot of people who had the right to act like a tall poppy, but everyone just rolled up their sleeves and got to work. I can’t tell you how great it was to sit in the room with teachers who didn’t need to be convinced technology would benefit our students’ learning.**  The energy in the room was crackling and buzzing.  People were excited to play around with new technologies and brainstorm ways to use it in the classroom. I can’t tell you how privileged and lucky I was to sit in that room.

Things I’m geeking about.

In reading about the conference, many describe the Google Teacher Academy as a “fire hose” conference…in other words lots and lots of talking about tools and things Google can can do. For me, high-pressure spewing of information doesn’t sound the most enjoyable way to spend the day. And while the days were crazy, the emphasis of on pedagogy from all the Lead Learners was noted and truly appreciated. The days were spent talking about teaching and learning, which is always the forefront of my thinking. A few days later, here are things I am still geeking out about***.

• I am already trying to figure out how I can get Google Hangouts turned on at my school. My kids are already informally using Skype and GChat to do homework and I think I can use this innately social nature of my kids to help them learn, locally and globally. And I honestly think Google Hangout, Google Hangouts on Air, working on GoogleDocs in a Hangout and Hangouts on YouTube are going to be transformative to student learning.
• Using Google technologies and critique protocols – I learned about this from Chris Harte and I’m always geeked to find out ways to help my kids learn from each other.
• Geek Gurl Diaries! Created by a Google Certified Teacher Carrie Ann Philbin, I am very, very intrigued by this. Getting girls into the tech world is important and complicated. I hope I can beg, borrow, and steal things from Carrie Ann to help my girls enter that world.
• Design Thinking. I had the good fortune to talk to Tom Barrett about Design Thinking, an inquiry method using real-world strategies for solving real world/ungoogleable problems****. I have a feeling I’m going to be embarrassed very soon about how little I knew about the pedagogy behind Design Thinking. I also have a feeling I’ll be bugging Tom about it as I figure out ways to integrate it into my classroom.

Next Steps

Moonshot Thinking – live in the gray area between audacious technology and pure science fiction #gtasydbit.ly/13dQues

— Amy McCauley (@AmyMMcCauley) May 7, 2013

Part of being a Google Certified Teacher is creating an action project that will bring about change and then get it done. People have done intimidatingly incredible action plans. The change can be local or global, but we were encouraged to dream big. To-The-Moon-Big. It’s a little scary really, because I really feel that if I come up with something good, Google (and all the Google Certified Teachers out there) will help me. That’s no-excuse territory.

Share early. Fail fast. #gtasyd

— Rebekah Madrid (@ndbekah) May 6, 2013

So what I’m thinking is a global conference, similar to Google Teacher Academy, for students. It would be run by students for students, supported by Google and Google Certified Teachers. It would help them develop the skills and networks needed for Moonshot Thinking to become a reality for them. This is a nutshell of an idea. There is more for me to think about and for me to figure out.  This will evolve and I plan on failing fast, getting feedback, and to keep on moving. But I know that my passions lie in helping kids become empowered learners and active world citizens. And if Google can help me just a little bit, then I plan on exploiting my tall poppy status to make that happen.

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*Of course, as an American I don’t believe in cutting down the tall poppy. In the States, we’re all tall poppies. It’s what makes us awesome. And at times, annoying. 🙂

 

**It’s not to say I don’t have these communities elsewhere (Coetail, Twitter, people at school). But it’s always incredible to find another group of people who will help you get better.

 

***Here are the notes Katie Christie and I took during the conference which shows a small amount of all the amazing things we learned. And there are dozens of things I still need to explore (scripting!). I had to take out a few sections that fall under the Non-Disclosure Agreement. Mentioning the Non-Disclosure Agreement does suggest that I’m a tall poppy. I’m okay with that, because it’s kind of cool.

 

****This is simplistic. Also, a sign of how being in the same room allows for some serendipitous conversation. And seriously – check out the No Tosh site.